How many villains do you want to see in an action oriented superhero movie? It's an interesting question to ponder upon. But maybe there's a simple answer too, the one that flashes immediately after you read the question. One! Why one? Because that is how we have perceived these grand tales of good versus evil. You got your representative of good and your representative of bad. They go head to head. Representative of good wins. Happy ending. Moral learnt. And that is how it has worked most of the times. So while the comic worlds have created multitude villains for the superhero to deal with, there is still a quintessential villain who the good guy always hunting. Like Joker for Batman or Lex Luthor for Superman. So is there any need to put in space for more than one villain in a superhero movie?
This question I raise after reading accounts of Paul Giamatti being cast as Rhino in The Amazing Spider-Man 2. Rhino will be battling the web-slinger alongside Electro with Jamie Foxx already cast for that role. Now how much of screen time will Rhino get is for the screen writers to decide. But the Spiderman franchise has already got this ‘multiple villain’ scenario wrong before. In Spider-Man 3. That particular movie, considered the weakest in Sam Raimi’s trilogy of Spider-Man films, began with Green Goblin’s son looking to avenge his father’s death. Then it went on to showcase Spiderman hunting Sandman before eventually brining on Venom as well joining forces with Sandman to blah blah… too much for a single movie!
Villains, in great Hollywood movies, play a pivotal part in bringing more meaning to the heroics of the good guy. And so developing the character of the villain is as essential as demonstrating the greatness of the hero. Multiple villains ruined two of the old Batman movies (in addition to a lot of other stuff that went wrong for them), when Two-Face and Riddler came together in Batman Forever and then it was Poison Ivy and Mr. Freeze in Batman & Robin. Their stories crisscrossed, there was a complete lack of chemistry between the main characters and eventually this just hurts the story building, apart from hurting your head as well. The initial Spider-Man movies had got it perfectly right in this department, Green Goblin in the first, Doc Ock in the second and our Spidey knows what to catch! The X-Men series puts across numerous good and bad guys but in the midst of it all the focus remained on Magneto as the guy to beat. But if you are looking for getting a ‘multiple villain’ scenario right, then no need to look further than Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight trilogy. Ra’s al Ghul and Scarecrow troubled Batman in the first movie and then he had to deal with Joker and Two-Face in the second. But the plot was so tightly written that things intertwined beautifully and one never felt that the movies are loaded with a bit too many characters. In fact Two-Face being effectively created by Joker was a masterpiece to pull off! I hope that The Amazing Spider-Man 2 writers would work on the same lines to interconnect the story lines of the various villains somehow together and not have poor Spidey swinging after one bad guy and then another. Too much task for the little guy, when already you consider that the movie would have both his love interests, Gwen Stacy and Mary Jane Watson. Heart issues and city problems to deal with! Go Spiderman…
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