Every movie lives or dies by its villain - Luke Skywalker would have had an uneventful upbringing if not for Darth Vader, Batman would be fighting grime if it weren't for The Joker and James Bond would probably be working in civil service without Blofeld and friends. But for every intergalactic space bastard or pussy-stroking megalomaniac, there's a cheap Xerox knock-off, a cardboard cut-out, half-price villain in reserve, the ones that exist only to receive an ass-kicking at the hands of our heroes. It's time to celebrate the lamest movie villains of all time, whether they lack the power, the know-how or even the fashion sense of cinema's finest bad guys. These hapless chaps couldn't take over the world if they were the last ten people on Earth.



10. GENERAL GRIEVOUS in STAR WARS: EPISODE III

In a saga full of fantastic baddies - including arguably the top movie bastard of all time, no less - there was always going to be a villain that wasn't fit to clean the bantha shit off of Darth Vader's space boots. With Anakin Skywalker still getting to grips with puberty, the dastardly villain in Episode III was the much-heralded General Grievous, a droid warrior with a fearsome reputation - spot on, if by 'fearsome reputation' you mean 'intense cowardice'. Sure, he carried four lightsabers, but does having lots of pockets make you a force to be reckoned with? Factor in his stupid chicken walk, a head modelled on a detergent nozzle and an inexplicable chesty cough and he's hardly the stuff of legend - give him a pack of Fisherman's Friends and he'd probably change his whole outlook on intergalactic war.



Ultimate act of lameness: Being shot and killed by a blaster. How fiendish!



9. PETER SARSGAARD as GENE CARSON in FLIGHTPLAN

First of all, no one is going to buy that this miserable looking girl would ever be capable of true evil: he's supposed to be the mastermind of a mid-flight scam that sees him frame Jodie Foster's concerned parent, but sports a look on his face like he's just shit in his pants. Secondly, his name is Gene, and no one called Gene has ever been villainous in the entire history of humanity. Finally, his flawless plan is so fucking retarded, it relies on every single passenger on the flight turning a blind eye to the stinking obvious, a series of extremely improbable incidents taking place and the captain having an IQ smaller than his shoe size. Carson's pre-pubescent voice and poor bomb awareness make him a shoe-in for this list; he even passes up an opportunity to punch Jodie Foster in the face.



Ultimate act of lameness: Being foiled by a recently-bereaved widow and a little girl.



8. MARK PILLOW as NUCLEAR MAN in SUPERMAN IV

Tremble at the might of Mark Pillow! Okay, so Nuclear Man is a slightly more intimidating name for a villain, but it still doesn't change the fact that he's the shittiest villain the Man of Steel has ever faced. Admittedly he was born in the most awesome way possible - by a nuclear explosion on the surface of the sun - but an attraction to simple Earth girl Lacy Warfield rendered him an impotent foe; you never caught General Zod making a booty call or Lex Luthor texting one of his bitches. Nuclear Man met a predictable death at the hands of an enviro-mental Superman and was thrown into a nuclear reactor, which somehow killed him despite it being the source of his power; the dolt couldn't even die properly.



Ultimate act of lameness: Falling for a humanoid female, and not even a hot one.



7. WILLEM DAFOE as THE GREEN GOBLIN in SPIDER-MAN

In the flesh, Defoe makes for a terrifying villain: his cracked, disturbing face looks like something born from one of your stinkiest cheese nightmares. But when scientist Norman Osborn undergoes accidental Goblinization, Defoe lets himself down with his choice of costume, encasing himself in a green plastic number that looks more like something you'd see the Power Rangers fighting against. With that ghoulish visage hidden behind a cheap-looking Halloween mask, the Goblin is reduced to cackling maniacally, failing to kill his arch-enemy and flying around on his posh little glider, which is kind of like an even more useless Segway. The Goblin even makes that hallmark rookie villain mistake of dying by his own hand; at least Dr. Octopus went out with dignity.



Ultimate act of lameness: Pumpkin bombing an elderly guy in a wheelchair.



6. RAUL JULIA as M. BISON in STREET FIGHTER

In digital form, M. Bison is as hard as balls - when he's not setting himself on fire, he's stomping your ass into the ground and making you curse your fat sausage fingers to hell. In the flesh, Bison is a less formidable enemy, despite being played by accomplished character actor Raul Julia, a man who played Othello in his time. Dressed from head to toe in tight, restricting leather, Bison lacked his videogame counterpart's fisticuff skills and was eventually beaten into a sorry-looking paste by Jean-Claude Van Damme and his fist-punching friends. Street Fighter: The Movie was to be game over for Julia, as he died shortly after filming - the makers dedicated the film to his memory, a gesture which saw Julia respond in kind by flipping them off from beyond the grave.



Ultimate act of lameness: Wearing a leather hat, straight from the YMCA school of fashion.



Lame villains numbers 5-1! >>>>

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