When it comes to smart characters, the assumption is that they know what they’re doing, or they at least have a good handle of things. However, a character’s intellect doesn’t always translate to the smartest decisions.
Whether it’s because of their hubris or the lack of forethought, these otherwise smart characters are still prone to making grievous mistakes. These errors cause a setback at best, but at worst, they could lead to deaths – including their own.
10 Prometheus — Everyone Was Too Careless For Their Own Good
When they discovered a distant moon that may be the source of all human life, archeologists Elizabeth and Charlie (plus a team of experts from different fields) are hired by the Weyland Corporation to explore LV-223. Despite their extensive academic backgrounds and field expertise, everyone on the USS Prometheus was just a slasher movie victim.
The cast’s lack of common sense was one of the fiercest criticisms against the Alien prequel, so much so that the movie was seen as a portentous yet generic slasher flick. Not only did scientists die after poking things that they shouldn’t, but they lacked peripheral vision as seen in how Meredith didn’t run to the side and got crushed by a spaceship in the climax.
9 Django Unchained — Dr. King Schultz Got Too Caught Up In His Theatrics
To Dr. Schultz, being a bounty hunter was literally the role of a lifetime. Rather than simply gunning down the latest wanted man, Dr. Schultz unleashed his actor’s side and played a complex role to take advantage of his mark’s complacency. This worked on pretty much everyone, except for the cunning house slave Stephen.
Instead of just buying Broomhilda von Shaft’s freedom from Calvin Candie, Dr. Schultz and Django got into the plantation owner’s good graces by portraying mandigo fight enthusiasts. Stephen saw right through this, and convinced Calvin to humiliate the duo. After Calvin wouldn’t stop insulting them, Dr. Schultz killed him, knowing this would end his life.
8 Jurassic Park — John Hammond Was Blinded By His Idealism & Naivety
Even after he grew up, Hammond wanted to share his love and fascination with dinosaurs to the world. To do this, the optimistic CEO of InGen used his business savvy to build Jurassic Park: an island-wide zoo filled with long-extinct beasts roaming around. Hammond spared no expense and ignored others’ sound advice.
Hammond was smart enough to hire the best scientists to revive the dinosaurs, but he still carelessly chose the lowest and most unreliable bidders to handle the park’s systems. Worse, for all his wits and ideals, Hammond only realized too late that forcibly bringing long-dead animals back to life was an unethical endeavor with dangerous results.
7 Uncut Gems — Howard Ratner Couldn’t Get Over His Gambling Addiction
Even though he’s not as big a hot shot as he thinks he is, Howard is still an undeniably cunning and street smart jewel salesman. If Howard played his cards right, he could make some big sales that could even help him go legit. Unfortunately, he has a gambling addiction and constantly digs himself in a deeper hole because of it.
Whenever the opportunity to pay back his debt (with interest) presented itself, Howard ignored it and placed his money on an even bigger bet than the last one that got him into trouble in the first place. Howard’s last bet may have been his biggest score yet, but it cost him his life when his frustrated debtors had enough of his excuses and tricks.
6 The Fly — Seth Brundle Couldn’t Give His Curiosity A Break
Seth was a brilliant scientist who successfully invented the world’s first working teleportation device, but this wasn’t enough for him. During a drunken bender, Seth put himself in the telepods without any proper protocol in place just to prove a hypothesis right. While the teleportation worked, what Seth didn’t realize was that his machine was actually a gene splicer.
After fusing with a fly during the teleportation process and slowly becoming a human/fly hybrid, Seth continued to experiment on himself because he saw everything (including himself) as an experiment to follow through. This reached its horrifying logical conclusion when he turned himself into a monster whose only relief was death.
5 Demolition Man — Dr. Raymond Cocteau Overestimated His Intelligence
In Demolition Man’s prologue, Los Angeles is on the brink of societal collapse. But thanks to Dr. Cocteau, the city became a peaceful utopia, where the idea of violence simply doesn’t exist. That being said, Dr. Cocteau only accomplished this by using his intellect, influence, and wealth to turn Los Angeles into the puritanical police state of San Angeles.
To wit, Dr. Cocteau not only mind-controlled the dangerous warlord Simon Phoenix to do his bidding, but he kept this a secret from the admiring city he lorded. Problem is, Dr. Cocteau underestimated Phoenix for being uncivilized and primitive. This led to Phoenix’s betrayal and Dr. Cocteau’s death, as Phoenix cleverly found a way to kill him and take over.
4 The Saw Series — John Kramer Got Lost In His Convoluted Games
The Jigsaw Killer is recognized as one of the horror genre’s smartest killers, but this isn’t exactly a good thing. John is so smart that he can play the cops and his own apprentices even in death, but his genius is dangerously detrimental to his moralist crusade. If he kept things simple, his life lessons may have been better preached.
John’s machinations needlessly complicated his goals, and his unearned moral superiority complicated things even further. For example, his life-or-death games only inspired death wishes among his victims, while his handpicked backup apprentices always fell to infighting instead of following his plans or living up to his pretentious expectations.
3 The Batman — Batman’s Sheltered Upbringing Left A Lot Of Blindspots
Batman is the world’s greatest detective, but his latest cinematic incarnation had yet to earn this prestigious title. Not only is Batman an expert in things like code-cracking and forensics, but he also mastered different forms of combat that he uses on his nightly patrols. However, all of these were worthless when Batman’s privilege came into play.
It’s not an exaggeration to say that Batman was blinded by privilege, as seen in his failure to recognize the significance of Riddler’s carpet tucker and his misunderstanding of basic Spanish. Because he wasn’t well-versed in the harsh reality of Gotham’s people, Batman wasted much time chasing wrong leads while endangering bystanders along the way.
2 The Marvel Cinematic Universe — Tony Stark’s Solutions Always Made Things Worse
When Tony Stark claimed he was a “genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist” in The Avengers, he wasn’t bluffing. Tony is indeed one of (if not) the smartest and richest men in the MCU, so much so that he designed state-of-the-art suits of armor as a passion project. But as smart as he may be, Tony was constantly held back by his impulsiveness.
When he wasn’t being too hot-headed, Tony made bad situations worse by forcing his solutions onto everyone else. His autonomous drone system birthed Ultron, and his support of the Superhuman Registration Act tore the Avengers apart just before Thanos’ attack. Tony worked best in a team, and he only realized this too late.
1 The James Bond Series — Ernst Stavro Blofeld Set Up His Downfalls More Than Once
To be fair, every genius supervillain that 007 crossed paths with fell victim to their hubris, but Blofeld is arguably the worst offender. Besides heading his own supervillain organization in SPECTRE, Blofeld was a criminal mastermind who could single-handedly instigate a world war if he wanted to. Problem is, he’s too vain for his own good.
Blofeld desperately needs to prove his superiority to everyone, especially to Bond. Rather than just kill his nemesis and be done with it, Blofeld would rather waste resources and opportune moments if it means personally humiliating Bond. This cost Blofeld world domination more than once, and led to his deaths in For Your Eyes Only and No Time To Die.