I think Hoult’s Lex Luthor makes the case for the “pure evil” villain in superhero movies. Oftentimes, I see critics and fans deride villains who are vicious monsters, and sometimes for good reason; often villains are written poorly because their motivations aren’t well fleshed out or believable and everything they do can be boiled down to “oh, well… they’re evil.” But I think we often forget that even Shakespeare would incorporate pure evil characters into his stories (and they are often the most fun ones to watch or read). With Lex, we don’t need to sympathize with him or even fully understand his motivations any more than we understand real-life xenophobes or thin-skinned, crooked billionaires who somehow always feel that THEY are the real victims. We know what they are, we know they are beyond redemption, and that’s enough. I love the old Raimi Spider-Man movies (well, the first two anyway) and a lot of the MCU stuff, but I think the only villains they bothered to develop were the sympathetic ones. The reason why Hoult’s Luthor and Ledger’s Joker work are because they are allowed to be complex without being sympathetic. Sure, there was some obvious past trauma that happened to the Joker (maybe or maybe it’s not one of the origin stories he gives us) and maybe Lex felt he lived in the shadow of an abusive father and it drove him to become the most powerful man in the world and someone who will always be more powerful simply because of his physiology will forever drive him insane. But we don’t sympathize with it either of these (possible) origins because these men allowed their motivations to turn them into vicious monsters. And sometimes, that’s what makes a great villain.