Whether they are animated, live-action, or everything in-between, silly characters show that they are not a force to be laughed at.
Animated
- Denahi from Brother Bear. When we first meet him, he's a highly immature and comical prankster. But after his older brother dies in a Heroic Sacrifice, he becomes serious and tries to be more wise, but then his little brother Kenai tries to avenge their older brother's death by killing the bear that attacked them. By the time Denahi finds Kenai, all is left of him is his torn clothes. Overcome with grief and anger over both of his brothers' deaths, he decides to hunt down the bear responsible; unfortunately, the bear in question is actually a transformed Kenai. Throughout the movie, Denahi tracks Kenai down with intent to kill him, becoming an Implacable Man, and starts undergoing Sanity Slippage towards the climax, tragically no longer resembling the light-hearted prankster from the beginning. Even Kenai says he no longer recognizes him. He gets better though.
- Flik from A Bug's Life is a light-hearted clown for most of the movie, but has a darker side which shows itself at the end when he tricks the Big Bad into getting himself killed.
- Despicable Me: Vector is a nerdy villain who creates technology like a "piranha gun" and a "squid launcher", and is constantly abused by everything. At the same time, he's competent enough to steal the Pyramids, his fortress is guarded by a Macross Missile Massacre, and he has no qualms about kidnapping and potentially killing young girls.
- Disney's Willie the Giant from Fun and Fancy Free. In the first scenes of the Mickey and the Beanstalk segment of the film, Willie is introduced as a terrifying kleptomaniac who seems more storm cloud than giant. In his second entrance, he appears as a goofy shapeshifter with a fondness for pink bunnies, and an inability to pronounce the word "pistachio." Oh, and he's also a Big Eater who almost accidentally eats the Disney power trio of Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck and Goofy. But don't confuse his playfulness for dimwittedness like Mickey, Donald and Goofy tried to. Count yourself lucky if he keeps you as a literal souvenir in a box, rather than squishing you like an insect. And when Willie gets really riled up, he also wields an iron morning star the size of a two-story house.
- The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Disney) features Clopin Trouillefou, a seemingly harmless Cloudcuckoolander and jester on the surface. Meet him again in the Court of Miracles as the leader of the Parisian underworld, where he'll gleefully hang you for trespassing and potentially working for Frollo. While singing and dancing.
- The Incredibles: Bomb Voyage. He's a guy who robs banks dressed like a mime. He's also a Demolitions Expert who robs banks single-handedly (with no discernible powers, at that) and has absolutely no issue slapping a bomb onto a 12-year-old kid just so he can avoid fighting Mr. Incredible.
- In Kung Fu Panda, Tai Lung's attempt to kill Master Shifu was interrupted by Po. The snow leopard scoffs at the idea that this comical panda could possibly be the Dragon Warrior, only to find out the hard way that he most definitely is!
- Unikitty from The LEGO Movie fits this trope to a T. At first, she comes off as flighty Cloudcuckoolander princess who wants to have fun all the time, but when she's pushed too far...well, let's just say there's a reason she provides the page image for Rage Breaking Point.
- The Lion King (1994):
- Ed. Sure, he seems goofy and bumbling, with that laugh and blank wall-eyed stare, but Scar found out the hard way he can be deadly serious.
- On the heroes' side, there's Rafiki the baboon. Don't let his old age or cheerful eccentricity fool you; he's perfectly capable of unleashing a can of whoopass with his staff.
- Pumbaa too. Despite being the dumber one of the comic relief duo and a really nice guy he's still a Warthog even bigger then the Hyenas and able to easily ram his way through a whole crowd of them and send any ones he missed flying with a back kick. When Banzai calls him a pig he flips out and wipes the floor with the Hyena trio singlehandedly and mostly off screen. Timon and Zazu were there too but considering he's several times their size it's implied Pumbaa did most of the heavy lifting.
- Tamatoa in Moana is a goofy, campy, singing giant crab. But he's still, ya know, a giant crab. Moana is rightfully terrified of him, and he's shown to be more than a match for Maui without his magic fish hook.
- Dave the Octopus from Penguins of Madagascar, is more than a little off his rocker, but the fact that he was able to concoct such a plan, gather an army of minions, and create that entire base as well as a human alter ego pretty much cements him into this trope.
- Puss in Boots: The Last Wish: The proudly Faux Affably Evil mob boss "Big" Jack Horner is easily the goofiest of the movie's many villains. He's also got the biggest on-screen body count of them all. To put this in perspective, Jack is shown to be more unhinged and destructive than the Grim Reaper himself, who's really pushing that age rating as is.
- Robin Hood (1973): Prince John is extremely infantile, but if you mock him badly enough, he will not let you get away with it.
- Spider-Man: Spider-Verse:
- Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse:
- To all appearances, Spider-Ham is a goofy comic relief character. When he faces off against the Scorpion, the villain laughs at him. Scorpion then learned the hard way that you really don't want to mess with someone when they operate by Toon Physics and you don't.
- There's also Dr. Olivia, Kingpin's right-hand woman and chief scientist. She largely seems like a Ditzy Genius who isn't at all evil, just too focused on scientific advancement to notice the world around her. Then she tells Peter B. Parker that her last name is "Octavius", reveals herself as this universe's Dr. Octopus, and shows off the Combat Tentacles and supervillain suit she was hiding under her lab coat and colorful clothes. She proves to be extremely dangerous in battle — the only reason the Spider-Men are able to escape her at the film's end is because a truck hits her — but never loses her silly, lighthearted edge as she cheerfully attempts to rip her enemies to shreds.
- Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse: The Spot starts off as an Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain who can't even get Miles to respect him, constantly referring to him as a "Villain of the Week". But the film goes on to show just how dangerous he truly is thanks to his skillset, scientific expertise, and single-minded hatred towards Miles. By the time the Spider-People see him again, he's playing circles around them all, and when he draws up more power from a Super-Collider, he becomes one of the biggest threats to the Spider-Verse, with his goal now being to make sure Miles suffers every second of what he went through.
- Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse:
- The Super Mario Bros. Movie: All the Kongs get a good laugh out of Cat Suit Mario, but it's a shockingly powerful transformation, granting Mario cat-like reflexes and incredible speed. The dive attack is powerful enough to drive Donkey Kong through several platforms.
- Teen Titans Go! To the Movies
- The Titans are constantly looked down on by the superhero community due to them not actually doing a lot of crime fighting and more time messing around. This movie shows that, while that may be true, they're still the Teen Titans who can be worthy adversaries when they wise up. They also ended up being the ones to save the world from the Big Bad.
- The Big Bad himself, Slade, is given a more Comically Serious personality here, which makes it more threatening when he acts more like Deathstroke the Terminator, whether through his combat or his planning.
- Teen Titans Go! vs. Teen Titans: 2013 Trigon, for his part, may be a bit more of a Bumbling Dad, but he's still the Lord of Madness for a reason. Not only did he manage to resurrect 2003 Trigon, but once he came to regret it because of his treatment of him, he actually absorbs him and becomes a threat to both series.
- In Turning Red, this applies mainly to Meilin Lee's red-panda form. While Mei is hustling the panda for her classmates (and earning money toward concert tickets), she's far more goofy and energetic than she used to be, so that everyone sees the panda as a Ridiculously Cute Critter that's also Big Fun. None of them realize just how dangerous the panda is until Tyler provokes Mei once too often while she's in panda form, and she loses her temper and attacks him..
- Wreck-It Ralph's King Candy doesn't look all that intimidating at first glance. He's basically a CGI Expy of the Mad Hatter. But then comes The Reveal and by the time the movie ends, you will believe the Mad Hatter can be a legitimately dangerous villain.
Live-Action
- 12-Hour Shift: Regina, nurse Mandy's cousin, may be an idiot, but when she finds herself cornered, she'll fight back and leave you bleeding on the floor. She also has no qualms about killing in cruel and unusual ways to get what she needs.
- Avengers: Endgame has Ant-Man, the most comedic of the heroes — both in non-stop quips and being subjected to humiliating moments such as a time travel test where time goes through him instead — being a force of destruction when he grows to Giant-Man size, punching Leviathans out of the sky and crushing Cull Obsidian (the strongest of Thanos's "children") underfoot.
- The titular gunslinger from The Ballad of Buster Scruggs is a skinny, sesquipedalian, singing dandy, but he's an absolutely lethal shot and downright brutal to his enemies.
- Bullet: Louis is treated as a somewhat clownish character with an inflated sense of ego about the skills he picked up in Vietnam despite being a Basement-Dweller. But in the final scene he avenges his murdered brother by infiltrating Tank's house in commando gear and slitting his throat.
- In Coroner Creek, Ernie and his thugs are laying a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown on Chris, when Comic Relief character Andy West (whom they had driven off earlier) returns, having retrieved Chris's gun. They just laugh and sneer at him, knowing that Andy never carries a gun. The laughter stops suddenly when Andy puts a bullet into the post right next to Ernie's head.
- Dawn of the Planet of the Apes: Briefly exhibited by Koba when attempting to steal weapons from the humans. Here's a helpful tip of advice; if a violent, intelligent, species of ape infiltrates your facility and starts to act like a circus animal, something is clearly not right and you probably shouldn't let it sit down next to you, nor should leave a sub-machine gun within its reach.
- Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves features the main party of heroes encountering Themberchaud, a comically obese red dragon that's too heavy to fly and almost resembles a pug in just how stubby and goofy he looks, especially in motion — at one point while chasing his prey, he stumbles and barrel rolls across the ground, seemingly just out of clumsiness. That doesn't change the fact that he's a giant, fire-breathing dragon, and is just as much of a threat as Godzilla if for nothing else than his enormous size.
- Tuco (The Ugly) of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly may be a Laughably Evil goon, but he is every bit as dangerous as Blondie (The Good) and Angel Eyes (The Bad), nearly killing them both on several occasions. Prior to the final shootout, Blondie makes sure to empty Tuco's gun rather than face him in a gunfight.
- Yoon Tae-Goo (the Weird) of The Good, The Bad, The Weird qualifies. He provides most of the comic relief and is more prone to amusing mishaps than the Good and the Bad, but this does not mean he isn't capable of being incredibly dangerous. (Fittingly, he's an Expy of Tuco.)
- Guardians of the Galaxy: Much of the films' humor comes from the contrast between just how silly the Guardians seem... and just how badass they are when they decide enough's enough. Gamora is the only one who averts the trope, but even she's prone to being The Comically Serious and the closest they get to Only Sane Woman.
- Peter "Star-Lord" Quill's just a harmless, goofy, kinda squishy human well, Half-Human Hybrid with a dorky hero handle and precious Walkman given to him by his mom, quite amicable, and the weakest party member of the Guardians in a straight up brawl. But he's freaking brilliant when it comes to Confusion Fu, distracting one Big Bad by challenging him to a dance-off buying the heroes enough time to nail him with an Infinity Stone, and when Ego the Living Planet manages to piss him off by revealing that he killed Mama Quill and followed it up by destroying Peter's prized Walkman? Yeah, living planet ends up regretting it.
- Drax the Destroyer: He looks dangerous... until he starts talking. He's a Boisterous Bruiser with no concept of tact and a massive case of Blunt Metaphors Trauma. Also a Proud Warrior Race Guy who dove into a creature's mouth and started stabbing it from the inside.
- Rocket Raccoon: A cybernetically-enhanced Rascally Raccoon who looks harmless... until you notice his unhealthy love of weaponry bigger than he is, all the dirty tricks he set up while waiting and his foul language (well, as foul as Disney will allow). Basically, while Drax looks dangerous, and becomes silly the instant he opens his mouth, Rocket looks harmless and silly until he opens his mouth.
- Groot. A goofy looking tree creature only capable of saying "I am Groot." Decides to start dancing to Electric Light Orchestra in the middle of a battle. And even when baby-sized, managed to thrash the Space Pirate who "watered" him by dumping a foul alcoholic beverage on him.
- In The Hobbit, with the exception of Thorin, all the dwarves in the company range from mildly goofy to downright mad at times. But they are all a force to be reckoned with when it comes down to a fight. Radagast the Brown is absent-minded and has bird poop in his hair but there is a reason why he is one of the most powerful wizards in Middle Earth. He banishes a swarm of attack spiders from his home, brings a hedgehog back from the brink of death, leads a pack of wargs on a merry chase and manages to fend off the Witch King.
- In The Magnificent Seven (2016), Faraday is the jokester of the group, appearing very easygoing but if he is driven to kill, he can be seen as even cruel. He is merciless and very fast on the trigger and frequently uses tricks and misdirection to throw people off guard.
- Mr. Right is about a dorky Cloud Cuckoolander of a young woman named Martha who encounters the titular character, a reformed hitman named Francis who goes around killing people that try to hire him as an assassin because "killing is wrong." His gimmick is wearing a red clown nose while doing this, he dances everywhere, he's a total Cloud Cuckoolander, and thanks to his ability to see the world in Bullet Time and his ridiculous reflexes, he is unbelievably deadly. It turns out that part of the reason he was interested in dating Martha is that he could sense that she could do what he does (which he demonstrates by throwing knives at her and her automatically catching them), and by the end of the film she is just as deadly as he is, with her own silly gimmick to go along with her deadliness (cat ears, in her case)
- Sonic the Hedgehog (2020): Dr Robotnik is very silly and quite childish, with antics such as making robot noises when he moves, dancing around his lab, and playing leg guitar. But as goofy as he is, he also a sociopathic misanthrope with extremely high intelligence, no empathy or morality, and he is very determined to get what he wants. He's built an army of extremely high-tech military drones controlled with a control console built into his gloves and takes after Sonic in an advanced personal aircraft that can fly at supersonic speeds, and he very nearly kills him with it and casually talks about how he's going to enjoy dissecting Sonic's corpse to learn more about him.
- Komodo from Warriors of Virtue needs to be seen to be believed
. He drops all the E and just runs full throttle every step of the way. However, without giving much away, there's are numerous very good reasons everyone is terrified of the guy. It's no surprise that, in an otherwise poor film, he's the most entertaining and memorable part. - Hedorah from Godzilla vs. Hedorah is a campy monster made of literal trash and sludge with a goofy design, silly theme song, and numerous goofy effects. It's also a giant mass of poison that visibly skeletonized dozens of people, burned one of Godzilla's hands to the bone, and shot out one of his eyes.
- Paddington 2: Phoenix Buchanan is an extremely camp and flamboyant down-and-out actor with a habit of talking to himself... who is also a Master of Disguise, a Man of a Thousand Voices, surprisingly skilled at both planning and improvisation, and, thanks to years of stunt and stage combat training, quite physically formidable too.
