How You Can Dominate the World with a Little Help from Your Movie Friends

If there’s one lesson I learned from the overall terrible film Last Action Hero, where Austin O’Brien leaps into his favorite action movie starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, it is that in our realistic world, Charles Dance was right – the bad guys can win. So when crafting the perfect team to help you enslave and/or destroy humanity or simply hold all the cards, you have to choose wisely.

A note – while there are no shortage of real historical monsters to choose from, this is strictly a fiction list – no need to drag Napoleon or Hitler back into things. Plus with some many exceptional horror, action and top sci-fi movies to choose from, it would reduce even the most evil historic bad guys (Ivan the Terrible, Vlad the Impaler) to quivering mounds of pudding.

The Political Machine

A good number of people already consider politicians wholly evil (or at least partly), so your first step in controlling things is to make sure you have someone in charge of the system. Master manipulators – glad-handlers, deal-makers, ruthless – who better than the man who ruled not just one world, but who pretty much manipulated an entire galaxy. From senator to emperor, no one has better plans than a dark lord of the Sith, Palpatine. With this much concentrated evil on your side (minus the wooden dialogue of George Lucas) you can’t lose.

But behind every great man, is a great lady, and no one creeps me out quite like Mrs. Eleanor Shaw Iselin – the woman who sacrificed her own son for power in The Manchurian Candidate. With these two working together, who could stand in your way?

The Money

Something just as important (some would argue more so) is the ability to grease the palms, throw your weight around, make the back room deals or just buy a really, really secluded island, build an impregnable fort and laugh manically. Money is the root of all evil, so I hear, so you might as well get a lot of it. Start with any of the myriad of Bond villains: Ernst Blofeld would be the best choice, seeing as he survives the most time against the world’s greatest super spy. But you also have Auric Goldfinger, Elliot Carver and Dr. No. Heck, with just the Bond villains alone you could hold the world hostage, seize control of the black market, get some nifty secret hideouts a cache of crazy weapons/vehicles and an amazing assortment of henchmen (and women). May as well throw Lex Luthor in as well – anyone with the balls to take on Superman that many times deserves a chance where he can actually do some real evil without worrying about a nigh-indestructible being stopping him.

The Muscle

Big, silent, intimidating – these are your shock troopers, bodyguards, protection. Subtlety may not be their game, but when you need some skulls cracked or arms broken, look no further. If you’re going to go big, might as well start with the unkillables: Jason Vorhees and Michael Myers – not much for conversation, but whose going to argue with a towering monster wearing a hockey mask and carrying a machete or a guy bearing a striking resemblance to William Shatner’s ghost who prefers knives. Plus, they don’t seem to say dead (not for long anyway). Of course, despite being able to take a lot of punishment, these two are still only (supernatural) humans. For some real protection – go metal or go home. Bring along a Terminator (or two). You have the classic beefy model, your liquid metal variety and your hot female metal variety. Just keep them away from lava flows/smelting facilities and you have a nigh invincible force on your hands. Plus they double as excellent backups in case you forget the password to your home security system.

Assassins

For times when you need someone taken out – quiet-like, see? Combine the right skills with stealth and professionalism and you can rest assured any problems you encounter along the way will quickly go away. You have to start with Anton Chigurh, the cold-blooded killer who uses a unique captive bolt pistol as his main weapon of choice. Once he’s given a mission, nothing will stop him, and he’s willing to take a bullet for the cause. However, sometimes things call for a woman’s touch, so you might as well invest in Miho – a modern day master of martial arts, blades weapons and excellent stealth and evasion skills. Sin City might miss her talent, but rest assured those talents won’t go to waste.

Monsters

I’m not talking about the ones in your closet or under your bed – I mean actual, literal monsters. The kind that can wipe out cities. You know, for when you really need to get your point across. Japan is a source for so many great monsters: Godzilla, Mothra, Rodan – plus, don’t forget about King Kong and whatever the hell that thing in Cloverfield was. So next time Mayor McCheese or some ruthless dictator has you up in arms, simply drop a giant lizard or amorphous Blob on his home town/city/state and watch him cave (or simply get eaten, problem solved either way).

Who else would you include in your cabinet of evil? Hannibal Lector? Keyser Soze? Voldemort? There’s room at the table for them all – and I’m sure you can think of many more.

- Chris Kavan is the Community Manager of FilmCrave.com and he may just have an evil grin on his face right now.