That’s one of the beauties of watching films: one projects. 
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I thought Malek served us great villainy: as well as his sinister interactions with Mathilde, I loved his expression of genuine disappointment when Bond dared to differ in opinion when they came face to face. It was this, more than anything else, that sold Safin to me as utterly deranged and therefore really quite terrifying. Classic villainy… straight up… with a twist! 
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I don’t think that he does. He has to destroy his body once infected the same way he has to destroy the island. Heracles will pass through him to other people, and them through others, and so on. Eventually, the virus finds Madeleine or Mathilde, if not both. It’s a forever virus, just like Teflon has forever chemicals in us. If Bond gets off the island, Heracles gets off the island. So he does not leave the island.
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I’m talking about the encounter where Safin infects him after shooting him several times. If that encounter doesn’t happen, and it only does because Bond has to go back to get the blast doors reopened, then Bond is able to leave the island.
I come from a different school. I want my projections to be interfered with and challenged. I want my perceptions and mind messed with. If a work of art accommodates my projections without challenging me, I wonder if a) I have bumped up against the ceiling of that particular work; or 2) rather than a work of art, I have encountered an (often) incredibly good work of craftsmanship, able to accommodate all who approach without ever risking offending them.
As Sondheim has Fosca tell us:
I read to dream
I read to live
In other people’s lives
I read about the joys the world
Dispenses to the fortunate
And listen for the echoes
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True, but, by closing the blast doors, Bond initiates Safin coming back to open them.
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I think it shows that, without the encounter with Safin, that Bond gets off the island. He didn’t go there intent on not leaving. Something forced him to stay on the island, and that something was the action taken against him by Safin.
Shouldn’t it be straight up with a twisted?
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Bond never went anywhere intent on not leaving. But it’s been one of the main features of these movies that the villain’s plan usually interferes with Bond’s and vice versa.
It was quite clear that Safin was still on the island, expecting his customers, and that he would try to protect his “factory” against Bond’s interference. Which he did.
Had Bond escaped from the island, Safin would have shut the blast doors, wait for the impact of the missiles which wouldn’t do much harm and then finish his business. Without that final confrontation, Safin would have won, while Bond simply would have been running away.
“Oh, look, he finishes his last movie by neglecting his duties and running away from a villain as weak as Safin, crying like a bay, just because he now has a family.” I can hear them barking “Woke, woke, woke, woke.” 
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They’re already barking “woke, woke, woke.”
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I don’t get it.
How are we defining “embody” and “substance” here? I’m no casting director, but I was sufficiently creeped out by his performance.
Also, I find it funny that we’re killing Malak here, but we’re completely fine with Donald Pleasence, Sean Bean, Charles Gray, Joe Don Baker, Johnathan Pryce, and that dude that played Gustav Graves. That’s 6 villan performances I would rate far worse than Malak’s. And I would hear arguments on others.
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I’d agree with your assessment of Malek. The fact that Safin wasn’t a great villain, wasn’t because of Malek. The script didn’t give him much to work with, but I do think he did his best with what he had.
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5. Meeting Silva (Skyfall, 2012)
Tied to a chair and with Silva rubbing his legs, Bond embraces Silva’s advances and diffuses a potentially uncomfortable situation with humour. Not long after, Silva kills Severine during a marksmanship contest and a shot glass that had been balancing on her head falls to the ground. Bond flippantly mourns the wasted liquid and not his former partner in crime. A rejuvenated 007 summons the reserves to gun down his captors and arrest Silva as the cavalry arrives.
4. To the right (Casino Royale, 2006)
Stripped naked and strapped to a chair, Bond is at the complete mercy of rope wielding villain Le Chiffre. The sequence allows Craig to deliver one of the best acting displays ever seen in a Bond movie. The tension is palpable as the two leads engage in a psychological battle with a stubborn Bond refusing to yield, managing to inject humour into a seemingly hopeless situation.
3. M’s death (Skyfall, 2012)
After seven films, four with former Bond Pierce Brosnan and three with incumbent Daniel Craig, the time had come for Judi Dench to say goodbye to the franchise. The significance of the moment wasn’t lost on Brosnan, who said: “I would have loved to have held her in my arms myself. I would have loved to have played that scene with her. But it was not meant to be for me. It was Daniel’s moment and his time.”
2. Island infiltration (No Time To Die, 2020)
A plot to kill millions of people around the globe is discovered on Safin’s island, leading to the end of the line for Craig’s fabled version of 007 in a series of unforgettable events. This includes a stairway shootout and a final fight with Safin, after which Bond decides to complete the mission for both the world and his family. A finale full of emotion and power set in a location that would make the late Ken Adam proud.
1. Bond, James Bond (Casino Royale, 2006)
Dressed in a three-piece suit and holding a Heckler & Koch UMP-9, Craig’s Bond stands over his kneecapped foe, Mr White, and delivers ‘the line’ for the first time. He confirms the obvious: that he is James Bond, and one of the best. The screen fades to black and the Bond them blares, successfully setting up his five film run.
That concludes my countdown, thanks for reading!
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By the way: his name is Rami Malek.
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Fantastic, thanks for the memories!
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And I wasn’t creeped out at all. As the Spectre noted, the script did not give Malek much to work with–just signposts for a character. It is possible that my decades of work with traumatized youth and adults makes me more critical of their representation on page, stage, and screen. For me, Malek assembled a bouquet of trauma signifiers, which he then failed to craft into a cohesive, authentic performance/representation of trauma.
I cannot comment on all of the other villains you mention, but as for Charles Gray: his Blofeld is perfect for the film in which he exists–a villain adopting the guise of a multinational industrialist–pathological late capitalism represented as smooth, erudite, and cold-blooded. Remind you of anyone?
And yet, she still came back for one more.
End the War On Rami Malek.
War is something occuring in several locations in the world where individuals are being displaced and experiencing extreme conditions, including the possible loss of life.
We are having a discussion on the merits (or lack thereof) of a particular performance by one screen actor who will not suffer a single hardship as a result of anything that is posted here.
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