Chaotic Good / Film

Chaotic Good heroes in Animated Films and Films.

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Films — Animated

• The titular character from Disney's Aladdin definitely qualifies, as despite being a thief, he retains a pure heart and a generous soul, making him a "diamond in the rough". Eventually, with the Genie's help, Aladdin eventually defeats the evil vizier Jafar and becomes affianced to the love of his life, Princess Jasmine.
• In Batman and Harley Quinn Harley Quinn starts out as Chaotic Neutral, as even after being supposedly reformed she's still a pretty big jerk, though not incapable of kindness at times, particularly with Goldblum's death. By the end, she seems to have completed her Heel–Face Turn and became straight-up Chaotic Good.
• Flik from A Bug's Life has some serious problems fitting in with the other lawful-leaning ants, is quite spontaneous, and doesn't accord special respect to authority, landing him squarely in Chaotic Good territory.
• The eponymous character from Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas started off as Chaotic Neutral, but at the end of the film, he proves to have a sense of honor, as Sinbad is willing to give up his own life to save Proteus'.
• In Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, Hobie Brown a.k.a. Spider-Punk fits this alignment like a glove. He is an extremely devout anarchist who chafes at all forms of authority, fights facists in his home world, reacts to being told to help people by insisting with unclear levels of seriousness that he's not doing it because he was told to, and states that he's only really cooperating with the Spider-Society out of personal loyalty to his friend Gwen Stacy. This all belies the fact that he does not approve of the Spider-Society's routine commission of Murder by Inaction to preserve the fabric of the multiverse; he clandestinely mentors Miles to prepare him so that he can fight to protect his own loved ones, and swipes bits and pieces of technology from Nueva York right out from under the Society's nose so he can construct his own dimensional watch and fight evil on his own terms.

Films — Live-Action

• Michelle from American Pie. She may be a nympho and a little crazy, but she's quite a nice person.
• Anger Management: Buddy Rydell's therapy techniques to help Dave and Teach Him Anger include such shady activities as paying a transvestite prostitute, stopping the car in the middle of traffic, and making him confront a Buddhist.
• Lieutenant Colonel Kilgore from Apocalypse Now is a hedonistic warmongering surfer type who happens to be a force of good luck for Captain Willard and his crew in their mission to assassinate Colonel Kurtz, bombing a beach they have to cross simply because he couldn't stand to see such a beautiful surf-worthy beach being occupied by the enemy. What pushes him, just barely, into this territory is that he rewards a Viet Cong soldier for having the balls to keep fighting as his guts were spilling out by trying to give him some water from his own canteen. (Key word: trying.)
• Billy Jack. When his best friend is raped by the sheriff's son (mainly out of spite), she keeps it from Billy, knowing what he'll do. Billy finds out anyway and kills him in one of the greatest examples of Tranquil Fury ever put to celluloid.
• Jake and Elwood Blues of The Blues Brothers manage to level a Chicago mall, a gas station, the front of Daley Plaza, and several police cars in their quest to save the orphanage they were raised in. They also offer to steal the money first before getting the Mission from God.
• In The Dark Knight Trilogy, Batman is clearly Chaotic Good, to the extent that drug dealers end up calling the police on HIM. The members of the Batmen Militia from The Dark Knight are even more so; though they're clearly good guys and are "only trying to help [him]", they're perfectly willing to use guns against the bad guys, and it doesn't help their case; it's shown early on that Batman regularly arrests its members any time he catches them out in the wild.
• Demolition Man:
  • Edgar Friendly is a slovenly man who flouts the saccharine tightly-controlled society of 2032 because he believes strongly in people being allowed to make their own choices. Unfortunately this puts him at odds with the Lawful Evil extremist leader who unfreezes a psychotic criminal to kill him.
    Edgar Friendly: (To Spartan) You see, according to *Cocteau's* plan. *I'm* the enemy. Because I like to think, I like to read. I'm into freedom of speech, freedom of choice. I'm the kind of guy who would sit in the greasy spoon and think "Gee, should I have the T-bone steak or the big rack of barbecued spare ribs with the side order of gravy fries?" I *want* high cholesterol. I want to eat bacon, butter, and buckets of cheese, alright? I want to smoke a Cuban cigar the size of Cincinnati in a non-smoking section. I wanna run around naked with green Jell-O all over my body reading a Playboy magazine. Why? Because maybe I feel the need to, okay, pal? I've seen the future, you know what it is. It's made by a 47-year-old virgin in gray pajamas soaking in a bubble bath, drinking a broccoli milkshake, and thinking "I'm an Oscar-Meyer Wiener". You wanna live on top, you gotta live Cocteau's way. What he wants, when he wants, how he wants. Your other option: come down here, maybe starve to death.
  • John Spartan is a sterling example as well. He is more than willing to break the rules to save people, and even saves Simon Phoenix from the building he blew up at the beginning, although it turns out to be a mistake on his part. His Love Interest Lenina Huxley starts out as more Lawful Good, but over the course of the movie, she becomes Chaotic Good like Spartan as well.
• Die Hard: John McClane. Some cops use pepper spray. John fills an elevator full of C-4 and uses it to clear out a floor of terrorists. If he didn't care so much about protecting civilians, this man would be considered a psychopath.
• Dirty Harry is clearly this, despite being a police officer. He frequently breaks laws and is remarkably blunt in his criticism of them.
  Rothko: This rifle might make a nice souvenir. But it's inadmissible as evidence.
  Callahan: Who says that?
  Rothko: It's the law.
  Callahan: Well, then, the law is crazy.
• In Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, most of the heroes (Edgin Darvis, Holga Kilgore, and Simon Aumar) have this as their official alignment. They are a bunch of thieves and con-men who nevertheless respect innocent life, only steal from the rich, and will act as heroes if the situation calls for it. Edgin gets bonus points for being motivated primarily by the welfare of his wife and daughter.
• John Rambo is a Shell-Shocked Veteran Anti-Hero who hates to be pushed around; but he will avoid killing his own countrypeople, save imprisoned veterans, rescue his Colonel Badass mentor, and protect his Morality Pet missionary from being raped. In short, he will go out all his way to save and protect anyone worth protecting even if it means completely disregarding orders from above and the Thou Shalt Not Kill policy of some other people.
• The Monkey King from The Forbidden Kingdom virtually embodies Chaotic Good. He's playful but benign, even causing a scene during the appearance of a divine Emperor who only appears once every five hundred years. Hilarity Ensues. This is true of most versions of Journey to the West. There's nothing evil about Monkey. He's arrogant even by Physical God standards (though whether he counts as a god is debatable). Buddha him/herself had to put a gold headband on his head (which shrinks whenever Tripitaka, or presumably anyone really, chants the "Headache Sutra") and crush him under a mountain just so he'd be a little bit controllable, but it's not like he doesn't want to help Trippitaka. If it were up to Monkey, he'd cloud-fly Trippitaka straight to India and be back before lunch. He actually had to be restrained from going too fast.
• Indiana Jones cares about his friends and family deeply and will fight for any of them, even if it means sacrificing the MacGuffin to do so. But he sure won't care about any rules that get in his way.
• Yang Tianchun from Iron Monkey is a Chinese Robin Hood. By day, he's a doctor who makes rich people pay through the teeth while giving free service to poor people (he's the only doctor in town, so he can get away with it too). By night, he's an expert martial artist who steals from greedy government officials and beats up corrupt Shaolin Monks 4 to 1.
• The lighter portrayals of James Bond, such as in the Roger Moore era, tend to portray him as a Lovable Rogue who's out to fight evil but causes plenty of destruction in the process. Grittier interpretations lean more towards Chaotic Neutral.
• Bud White in the movie adaptation of L.A. Confidential is, overall, a Chaotic Good cop who has his own brand of justice. His rivalry with Ed Exley exemplifies the difference between Chaotic Good (White) and Lawful Good (Exley, at least until the ending, when he kills the villain in cold blood). What's interesting is that the movie casts many shades of grey on both individuals, with the first often coming across as a vigilante thug and the second as a self-satisfied, holier-than-thou jerk (in the book, both were even less sympathetic).
• Joe Hallenbeck, the Anti-Hero protagonist of The Last Boy Scout. Aside from being a self loathing, pessimistic, chain smoking, borderline misogynistic bastard ("...and then some."), he also gives a sinister death threat to two of the badguys. He doesn't lie, something the bad guys learnt the hard way.
• Marvel Cinematic Universe:
  • Despite being either Lawful Good or Lawful Neutral in the comics, the film version of Iron Man fits here. He flies into a combat zone without telling anyone (almost getting himself killed by the US military in the process), deliberately goes against SHIELD's advice and reveals he is Iron Man, and, in the second film, refuses to give the government access to his technology.
  • Most of the Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) are of this alignment, except Drax, who is True Neutral (since vengeance is all that drives him), and Rocket, who is textbook Chaotic Neutral.
• Mary Poppins, in the film of the same name, is a benevolent force of chaos in her charges' too-ordered lives.
• The Mask: The Mask at first is Chaotic Neutral but at the end of the film shifts to this as he is a good-hearted man despite his wild nature.
• Ofelia in Pan's Labyrinth is defined by her rebellious and spirited nature, and doesn't follow orders even when she would ostensibly benefit from doing so.
• Pirates of the Caribbean:
  • Captain Jack Sparrow. He has no respect for law or authority, but at the end of the day, he can't seem to stop himself from doing the right thing, even when No Good Deed Goes Unpunished. He's an unapologetic thief and pirate, but refuses to take part in the slave trade and routinely goes out of his way to save innocents, even at risk of being imprisoned... Or worse.
  • Most of the other heroic pirates fall here as well. They are after all pirates, so being chaotic is no surprise, but they all seem to have some degree of a moral compass. A strong example occurs towards the end of the first movie, where they abandon Jack for dead, but come back for him in the end. And of course, we never see them engage in actual piracy, just stealing from people who deserve it and villains.
• Rush Hour has Detective Carter, who works for the FBI, but has no partner (which he is criticized for), is loud/obnoxious, and does things his way. He is told off by the chief for what he did but he just ended up justifying his actions by saying no one got hurt and the job got done. He ends up helping people enough to keep him from being Chaotic Neutral.
• Kirk in Star Trek (2009), in contrast to Spock's Lawful Good nature and McCoy's Neutral Good. He saves the galaxy after cheating in the Kobayashi Maru test for a reason.
• Star Wars:
  • R2-D2 will break any rule he thinks gets in the way of his core duty: service to his owner. This sometimes includes ignoring his owner's commands.
  • Han Solo starts off as a Chaotic Neutral criminal who's Only in It for the Money but isn't malicious enough to be evil. His loyalty to Leia and Luke leads to him redeeming himself enough to qualify as good, but he still plays by nobody's rules but his own. By the time of The Force Awakens, he's become the one insisting that the rebels need to press on for the sake of the galaxy.
    Never Tell Me the Odds!.
  • Chewbacca, who like Han is a criminal who dislikes rules or impositions on his freedom but who is brave, loyal, and benevolent, also qualifies.
  • Anakin Skywalker (before becoming Darth Vader) also seems to be this alignment, seeking to do good in the galaxy as a Jedi Knight but chafing under the strict rules and regulations of the Jedi Order, although he considers himself Neutral Good. However, over the course of the prequels, he grows tired of constant conflict and desires order, beginning his shift to Lawful Evil.
• The Three Stooges tend to be this, as the chaos they wreak is almost never intentional on their part and they are almost always the good guys. Though there are many occasions where they are more Chaotic Neutral and two occasions where they are clearly Chaotic Evil. Most of their films that don't have them just looking out for themselves to evade an enemy have them come across someone in need and forget their own interests in order to help. They are usually pure of heart... and dim of wit.
• The Tremors series has Burt Gummer, a Crazy Survivalist who is openly distrustful of the government and plays by nobody's rules but his own, but also is very respectful of human life and can always be counted on to protect people from the monsters he constantly faces.
• Kevin Flynn in TRON acts like an overgrown teenager, and cheerfully uses his hacking not only to try and prove Dillinger's theft but to make his traffic tickets and phone bills vanish. What prevents him from going completely Chaotic Neutral is that he genuinely cares for the people he allies himself with. He seems to have clawed his way into Neutral Good by the sequel. His son Sam in TRON: Legacy proves the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, checking in with his dad's company for an annual practical joke (to try and shame them into doing the right thing) and being on a first-name basis with the police officers working the impound lot.
• V in V For Vendetta is a tough call in the original comic, but as an altruistic freedom fighter opposed to a tyrannical government is more concretely Chaotic Good in the movie.

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