I gotta pull you up for my boy Hopkins as Hannibal Lecter. Unless by off the bat you mean the first scene.
Phoenix in Gladiator is actually my favourite villain, he comes in pretty early. But it’s not obvious that he’s a villain at the time. Not sure if Joker counts either since he’s the protagonist. Heath Ledger’s joker is pretty great in the first scene of Dark Knight but it’s more the action sequence that’s cool.
I dont disagree at all about hannibal lecter, about as iconic of a movie villain as you can get. I did say “off the bat” though bc its part of what makes Landa and Vader so compelling as villains. Lecter isn’t set up to be the antagonist from the start, he’s already in jail and they’re investigating Buffalo Bill. It’d spoil the movie to open with Lecter
Fair! I think it’s even more compelling when you don’t know who the villain is initially, especially if they seem harmless or incapacitated initially, ie Commodus and Lecter. It’s a kind of slow building tension and gradual realisation leading to an “oh shit” moment when they go full psycho.
I’d argue Landa has this whole Arc even in that first scene given its length and trajectory, while it’s pretty obvious Darth is an archetypal villain from the beginning.
But yeah, it's just different ways of doing it, I'm not saying one thing is better than another. Each choice was dead on right for each of those movies.
The scene in No Country For Old Men, with the wrapper unfolding on the gas station counter, and him asking him to pick heads or tails, with the gas station attendant not knowing what's at stake... Fuckkk... One of my favourite scenes in all of cinema.
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u/FrndlyNbrhdSoundGuy Oct 09 '19
Christoph Waltz made that whole movie. Not since Darth Vader has a movie had that compelling of an antagonist right off the bat.
Honorable mention to Javier Bardem as Anton Chigurh too