Even the worst person can occasionally do a good thing. In the movies, it happens with
some regularity. Keep watching for some bad guys who redeemed themselves. A little, at least.
Few MCU characters undergo such radical evolution as Thor's half-brother Loki,
and many fans would agree that Loki switched from supervillain to superhero a while ago.
But in 2013's "Thor: The Dark World," he's still fresh from his mass murder in "Avengers."
If nothing else is proof that he's still got a toe in the dark side, there's his aid to Kurse
during the Dark Elf assault on Asgard and his subjugation of Odin at the end of the film.
But we still see a more heroic side to the trickster god in the Dark Elf world. When Thor
attempts to destroy the Aether with his lightning, Loki rushes to shield Jane Foster from any harm.
Moments later, when Kurse lobs one of the black hole grenades at the heroes,
Loki nearly sacrifices himself to push Jane out of the way. Finally,
when Kurse proves too powerful for Thor to handle alone, it's Loki's deceit that kills
the Dark Elf after he secretly attaches a black hole grenade to the monster.
In 1983's "Return of the Jedi," Luke Skywalker rejects the repeated advice of Yoda and Obi-wan,
who insist there is no salvation possible for Darth Vader. Luke willingly surrenders himself
to Imperial forces, believing Anakin Skywalker is still alive within Vader.
Vader brings Luke to Palpatine, and ultimately, Luke must once more duel
his father, but this time, his victory nearly pushes him to the dark side.
In the end, Luke's faith in his father is redeemed. As Palpatine tortures Luke with force
lightning, Vader looks back and forth between his son and the emperor, eventually choosing what no
one expects but everyone prays for. Rather than let his son die, he lifts Palpatine from the floor
and — battered by the emperor's lightning — hurls his former master down a long shaft.
In the end, Anakin not only saves his son but proves he really is the
Chosen One the late Qui-Gon Jinn knew he was so many years ago.
In 2004's "Spider Man 2," Otto Octavius, aka Doc Ock, proves to be a much more sympathetic
villain than his predecessor Green Goblin. After the robotic arms he initially uses
only to aid him in his scientific pursuits are fused to his body, we learn the arms possess a
malevolent intelligence which begins influencing everything Octavius does. Octavius is transformed
into an obsessed monster who will do anything, including kill, to realize his scientific goals.
Thankfully, by the end of the film, Octavius is able to emerge from the arms' influence and
redeem himself. In the climax, Octavius' experimental fusion reactor is going wild
and endangering not only Spider-Man and Mary Jane but the entire city.
Finally able to assert his dominance over the robot arms, Octavius uses
them to save New York by plunging the reactor into the East River. The last we see of him,
Octavius' seemingly lifeless body follows the reactor toward the bottom of the river.
"I will not die a monster."
Long before they introduced us to The Dude of "The Big Lebowski," Joel and Ethan Coen gave audiences
the 1990 gangster film "Miller's Crossing." Gabriel Byrne stars as Tom Reagan, a high-ranking
adviser in the Irish mob who goes rogue when his boss starts getting edged out of business by his
Italian rival, the unpredictable Johnny Caspar. Tom's risky gambit is a long con — confusing both
friend and foe alike so he can win Caspar's confidence and destroy him from the inside.
Through sheer relentlessness, one person is able to sniff out Tom's game — Caspar's
brutal right-hand man Eddie Dane, aka the Dane. Toward the end of the film, Tom is summoned to
Caspar's home, where the Dane waits to kill him. At first, Caspar goes along with the Dane's plans,
doing nothing as he chokes the life out of Tom. But just as Tom begins to fade,
Caspar crushes the Dane's nose with a fireplace shovel, saving Tom and yelling
that it was the Dane who double-crossed him. Minutes later, Caspar says to Tom,
"Look at this, kid. Something I try to teach all my boys!"
He strides over to his desk, gets a gun, and shoots The Dane in the head.
"Always put one in the brain."
For much of 2017's "Thor:
Ragnarok," Skurge isn't particularly impressive. Not only is he the only warrior at the Bifrost
who doesn't lift a hand to stop Hela when she arrives in Asgard, but even after he becomes her
so-called executioner, he pretty much just fields Hela's evil monologues and lets the army of the
dead and Fenris do all the heavy lifting. In the final battle, rather than commit to either side,
Skurge disguises himself and boards the refugee ship, hoping to escape.
However, after Hela summons one of her spikes to stop the refugee ship and her undead minions begin
pouring into the vessel, Skurge finally finds his courage. He unveils his beloved rifles — Dess
and Troy — and mows down the unliving soldiers before they can overtake the ship. Sacrificing
his own escape for that of his brethren, Skurge leaps from the ship and fights off the army of
the dead as the ship pulls away. Like his comic book counterpart's heroic last stand in 1985's
"Thor" #362, Skurge ultimately dies for Asgard, as Hela kills him once she sees he's switched sides.
One of the most memorable scenes in 1993's "Jurassic Park" is the
unveiling of the gargantuan T-Rex. After escaping her enclosure,
she takes one of the first human victims of the film when she devours the lawyer on the toilet.
She comes close to killing Hammond's grandkids when she nudges their car off a ledge and
injures the chaos theorist Ian Malcolm enough to keep him on his back for the rest of the film.
But in the end, it's the T-Rex who proves to be the heroes' salvation. In the film's final act,
Hammond's grandchildren are hunted by the deadly velociraptors in the visitor's center. Ellie and
Grant do their best to help the children, but eventually, all four of them are trapped by two
of the hungry beasts in the center's main room. Just as one of the raptors is about to strike,
the T-Rex reappears, snatches it off the floor with its jaws, kills it, and begins eating it.
As the second raptor attacks the T-Rex, the heroes take the opportunity to escape.
In the 1988 action comedy "Midnight Run," everybody wants to capture the
fugitive accountant Jonathan Mardukas. The luckless bounty hunter Jack Walsh
has Mardukas in custody for most of the film, but they're pursued by the FBI's
Special Agent Alonzo Mosely, the mob, and rival bounty hunter Marvin Dorfler.
In Texas, Walsh and Mardukas are cornered by two mob goons. The heroes find an unlikely savior in
the form of the brutal Marvin Dorfler, who knocks both goons out with the butt of his
shotgun. Walsh has no intention of giving his bounty up to Dorfler, so he handcuffs himself
to Mardukas and seemingly throws away the key. Dorfler loads them both into his car,
and they soon find themselves pursued by a helicopter with a gangster sharpshooter on board.
Eventually things get desperate enough that Walsh convinces Dorfler to give him a gun,
and the former takes out the chopper with a shot to the tail rotor.
As Dorfler celebrates their salvation, Walsh sucker-punches him, knocking him unconscious.
Dissimilar to the Marvel Comics, it’s rare that X-Men's old enemy Magneto would ally
himself with his rivals or ever join their team. The first time something like this
happens in the film adaptations, however, is in the aptly named "X2: X-Men United."
After a confrontation with the Boston police turns violent outside Bobby Drake's home,
the X-Men's Blackbird is pursued by a pair of fighter jets. By dialing her powers up to 11,
Storm is able to get both pilots to eject but not before one of them fires off two missiles.
Jean takes out one of the missiles with her telekinesis, but the second
detonates close enough to the Blackbird to send it spinning to the ground below.
As the jet drops, it inexplicably slows and finally comes to a halt mere feet from the ground.
From outside the jet, we see Mystique and Magneto,
with the latter extending his arm and using his powers to keep the jet from crashing.
As the X-Men begin to realize what's happened, Magneto jokes to Mystique,
"When will these people learn how to fly?"
In the 1993 romantic crime drama "True Romance," things change in a big way
for comic book store clerk Clarence and former sex worker Alabama. This is when a combination
of vigilante justice and dumb luck deposits a suitcase full of uncut cocaine in their laps.
They manage to get wealthy movie producer Lee Donowitz to take the drugs off their
hands for a hefty sum, and the deal takes place in an expensive LA hotel suite.
Unbeknownst to anyone else in the suite, Donowitz's assistant Elliot is working
as an informant for the LAPD. Once the deal is finalized, the cops charge in,
but Donowitz's private security guards refuse to stand down. The standoff
gets more complicated when the mobsters who want their drugs back burst into the suite.
Surprisingly, the standoff turns violent because of the unarmed Donowitz. The producer goes wild
when he realizes Elliot betrayed him and throws a tray full of hot coffee in his assistant's face.
Detective Nicholson opens fire in response, and soon everyone is shooting. Elliot, Donowitz,
all of Donowitz's security, all the cops, and almost all of the mobsters quickly die.
One of the gangsters makes it as far as the hotel lobby,
where he's gunned down by uniformed police. The only survivors are Clarence,
Alabama, and their friend Dick, though Clarence loses an eye in the exchange.
Who would’ve thought that a deadly three-way shoutout would become their saving grace?
In 2001's "The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring," during the
heroes' trip through Moria, Gandalf had some wise words for Frodo. He tells him that he
should have pity on Gollum's, as Bilbo did when he spared Gollum’s life years prior.
Gandalf believes Gollum has a part to play in there story still, saying,
"The pity of Bilbo may rule the fate of many."
The words prove prophetic more than once. First, in spite of Gollum's inevitable betrayal,
Frodo and Sam would never have made it to Mordor without him.
Second, in "The Two Towers" it's Gollum who rescues Frodo when the hobbit is
mesmerized by the ghostly lights of the Dead Marshes and nearly drowns.
Finally, there's the destruction of the One Ring. When he finally makes it to Mount Doom,
like the human Isildur before him, Frodo is overcome by the ring and decides to keep it.
He puts it on, immediately drawing the attention of Sauron [SOW-ron] and his wraiths. It's only
because of Gollum's timely intervention — chomping Frodo's finger off — that Sauron
is defeated. In the struggle that follows, both Frodo and Gollum fall over the edge.
While Sam saves Frodo, Gollum descends into the lava below, dying and taking the ring with him.
It may have not been Gollum’s virtuous intention,
but his lust for the ring became the salvation for many.
His accidental sacrifice not only saved Frodo from the ring’s power, but also the rest of the world.
The replicant Roy does some terrible things in the 1982
sci-fi classic "Blade Runner," but in the film's climax he chooses to save the life
of Deckard. Despite the fact that he’s the hero who is not only hunting him but
has already killed two of the three replicants who worked with Roy, including his lover Pris.
After Pris' death, Roy pursues Deckard through the Bradbury Building, knowing he only has
minutes to live and presumably resolving to take Deckard with him. Deckard manages to escape the
building to the rooftops but loses his gun in the process. Unarmed and facing the super-strong Roy,
Deckard has no choice but to flee across the rooftops, but he's no Spider-Man. His jump is
short on his way from one roof to the other, and he begins slipping from the opposite ledge. Rather
than letting him fall, Roy easily leaps to the ledge, waits until Deckard finally loses his grip,
and grabs the Blade Runner's wrist. With one hand, Roy lifts Deckard and deposits him to safety.
In his final moments, Roy tells Deckard about some of the amazing things he's seen in space,
regretting that those moments will be lost in time, like tears in the rain.
Considering his words, it seems likely Roy chooses to save his opponent not
out of forgiveness or any sudden surge of moral righteousness. Rather, because
as a man seconds from death, he values life — even that of an enemy — more than vengeance.
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