While working on our recent ranking of prison escape movies, I hit a wall after thinking about movies in which the villain gets himself (or herself, possibly, but it’s almost always a “him”) caught, as part of an evil plan. In these films, it is only by “getting captured” that the next phase of the villain’s plan may commence. And then, usually, he’ll escape. Often, out of some sort of large glass box. So, these films didn’t seem like they should go on my prison escape list, but felt relevant. Hence, the mini sub-list.
Here goes, super quickly, ranked from worst to best.
VILLAINS WHO WANT TO BE CAPTURED
8. Thor: The Dark World, dir. Alan Taylor (2013)
This one might be a little hard to understand if you haven’t seen the movie, but basically (and this IS a spoiler), an evil “dark elf” named Malekith (Christopher Eccleston) orders his Lieutenant, Algrim (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje), to be captured, incognito, by Asgard soldiers, so that he can release the prisoners inside. In prison, he turns himself into “Kurse,” a super-techno-human, and frees all the prisoners to start a riot which will distract the Asgard forces, making it easy for Malekith to attack the city. Loki’s in jail too, but he is left behind.
7. Star Trek: Into Darkness, dir. J.J. Abrams (2013)
Filmed during the Benedict Cumberbatch frenzy of the early 2010s, this film features our man as “John Harrison,” a traitorous Starfleet officer who, once he is captured, reveals himself to be the villainous, age-old, man-made superhuman entity called Khan Noonien Singh. And once he’s thrown into the Enterprise‘s plexiglass brig, he can bust out and try to take over the ship.
6. The Avengers, dir. Joss Whedon (2012)
So, in this film, Loki’s capture by the Avengers is accidental, but he uses it to his advantage, mind-controlling Hawkeye, and working up Bruce until he hulks up, all with the goal of weakening the Avengers. And it does work, for a while.
5. The Dark Knight Rises dir. Christopher Nolan (2008)
Bane (Tom Hardy) does the same exact thing in this movie as the Joker does in the previous film, only he does it with a plane.
4. Se7en, dir. David Fincher (1995)
Towards the end of Se7en, a film about a serial killer who murders people in manners which represent the seven deadly sins, the killer known as John Doe (Kevin Spacey) appears in a police station and willingly surrenders. As long as the detectives on the case agree to go with him to a new location so he can reveal the last two murders on his list.
3. The Dark Knight dir. Christopher Nolan (2008)
The Dark Knight does this thing really well. The Joker gets himself caught (kind of midway through the movie, though, so you know it’s not gonna stick) by the cops and thrown into a jail cell. But he’s doing this to place Batman in a bind… there are two victims in different places, tied to bombs: Batman’s love Rachel (Maggie Gyllenhaal) and do-gooder politician Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart).
2. The Silence of the Lambs, dir. Jonathan Demme (1991)
Ah, the always-controversial The Silence of the Lambs. I’m not going to rehash all of the debates/issues with it, so I’ll just get to the plot. As payment for helping out FBI Agent Clarice Starling (Jodie Foster) in her hunt for a serial killer, Hannibal the cannibal (Anthony Hopkins) winds up negotiating a relocation to a different prison cell, and he ends up dramatically breaking out after killing a guard, peeling that guy’s face off, and wearing it as a disguise as he leaves the building… which reminds us that whatever else this film may be (a masterpiece? the source of all my nightmares?), it is also… gross.
1. Skyfall dir. Sam Mendes (2012)
This is my personal favorite of the villain sequences on this list, but this might also be because Skyfall is my personal favorite film on this list. I ship Roger Deakins’s cinematography work, but also this is the first Bond film in a while with a really great, flamboyant villain, and what are the Bond films about, if nothing else? My apologies to Quantum of Solace, but Dominic Greene just doesn’t cut it for me. Anyway, creepy madman Raoul Silva (Javier Bardem) gets himself arrested to place him in close proximity to M (Judi Dench), whom he hopes to assassinate.
