Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Shitty Action Film Villains Volume Three: General Francis X. Humel
Pretty much the only rule of film villainy more important than "the villain can't be a glorified henchman" is this one: "the villain can't be less bad-ass than his henchmen." In The Rock, Ed Harris' rogue Marine recon officer hijacks a bunch of VX nerve gas and takes San Francisco hostage unless he gets a shit-ton of money from the government. It's a decent start, until we find out that Humel wants the money to go to the families of soldiers who died under his command...and that he's actually bluffing and has no intention of gassing Frisco. Meanwhile, his accomplishes, lead by Tony Todd, are very much willing to kill half of the people in the Bay Area, because they aim to get paid! So the supposed villain of the piece ends up getting lit up by his own flunkies because he won't launch his missiles. Some might call this a pleasantly rich characterization for an action film. Since this movie was directed by Michael Bay, I'm just going to call it lame. Also, dude's named after a line of adorable porcelain figurines. 'nuff said.
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