More research required. I’ve definitely heard of (or at least, I have convinced myself I have heard of) The Rescuers. If you showed me a clip of the movie, there’s a very small chance I would guess that I’m looking at The Rescuers. If you showed me a clip of the second movie I would also guess it was The Rescuers because I had no idea the sequel existed.
So if I was going to review whether Madame Medusa is a great Big Bad Evil Guy worthy of your Tabletop Game, I’d need to watch it. So I have. I certainly had more fun with this than I did with Meet the Robinsons, but from the get-go I hypothesised that Madame Medusa wasn’t making the top 10.
Presence – 1 out of 5
If your placing your TTRPG in this world, I think we can all agree that we are playing the mice. Character creation is simply deciding what skills your mouse hero has. The whole council meeting vibe is a fun and easy way to establish your adventure. And it is a very fun adventure. But not really because of the villain.
It might not be fair to The Rescuers, having watched it at a much older age than most Disney movies, but I felt like I’d seen quite a lot of these elements before. Slightly different flavours and visuals, but there was a lot of this movie that reminded me of “that thing/character from x”. Madame Medusa is the most egregious example.
If I may be so blunt, Medusa is Discount Cruella. We’re doing a lot of the same menace, but with much less showmanship. A lot of the vile with less of the style. We’re at tantrum level from the get-go, and it rarely dips, but it’s much less impressive than what’s come before.
Besides, if your BBEG has an irrational fear of your heroes on arrival, any semblance of remaining tension is gone.
Atmosphere – 0 out of 5
The bayou is always a good spot for an adventure, and this version has got some funky, foggy atmosphere within it. When I first checked this movie for a villain, saw the name and the setting, I imagined a shaman/mage sort of villain. So I was doubly disappointed.
At the end of the day, the world is spooky and dank, but Medusa is just living in it.
Omniscience – 1 out of 5
Medusa knows about a treasure that no else seems aware of. Could be more than one point… if it were not for the fact that her plan is terrible. She can’t reach the treasure herself, and her only solution is to force a child to go get it. Not to clear the way, not to hire some lithe contortionist to go in after it. Grabbing tools at clearing a path doesn’t ever pop into her head.
She turns her nose up nat all those other jewels because they are not as good, etc, yada yada. But any iota of common sense could have led her to sell one of those trinkets to buy the tools she needs to get that diamond herself.
She can’t find anything when out on patrol. doesn’t know the Rescuers are in the barge with them. She’s totally clueless about the heroes at all.
Henchmen – 1 out of 5
I shall not be giving out negative number for any scoring here, but my goodness is Mr. Snoops pushing his luck. There’s an argument for having the odd henchman in the game to be the played for laughs, but Snoops is not even that. He is tragically incompetent and offers no threat or levity. It’s implied that the small child has escaped Snoops multiple times.
At one point, he’s arguing with her about the diamond. The next second they are on the boat and he’s got a gun pointed at him…. which means he watch her betray him, allowed her to go back to the boat, stitch the gem into a teddy, and then scoop up the gun and point it at him.
So not only is Snoops bringing the score down, the two alligators aren’ t doing much to raise the score either. I was initially impressed to see Brutus and Nero, as they grabbed the girl (albeit offscreen), but then I watched both alligators flail about trying to get two mice out of an organ for far too much of the movies run time.
Threat Level – 1 out of 5
Strange to give someone such a low score when they have a firearm at multiple points, but it’s wielded with zero care, precision or deadliness. Snoops almost runs himself into the crossfire at one point, and that’s about it.
There’s no powers, no sense of great strength or cunning. In an TTRPG when you are playing critters (which is actually quite a common thing) normal size objects are vast and medium sized beasts and gargantuan. Everything has the potential to be more threatening… but not for Madame Medusa.
If anything, her panicked, scattershot approach made the Rescuers seem more safe.
Finale – 1 out of 5
There’s not much of a finale here. More like a finale in little parts. First, there’s the Rescuers and Penny surviving the cave. Medusa is not present for that. The second is the run around on the ship with fireworks going off. Neither Medusa nor her henchmen do anything except fall over or slide into traps.
The final, final finale sees Medusa literally dragged around on a rope and into a crash, after which she’s surrounded by her own alligators who immediately turn on her.
Despite the mice being called the Rescuers, and Medusa supposedly the villain… I’m pretty sure Penny got away through a set of random circumstances that did not involve a rescue… and Medusa screamed and flailed until it was over.
Final Score = 0.83
Madame Medusa is the worst. And I don’t mean that in a good way. On this scale, you could technically score lower than 1, but no one else has come close. Everyone has a henchmen or a personality or a something to elevate them as a RPG villain, but I just couldn’t find it in Medusa. It’s not just that she’s ineffectual, it also because she’s barely trying.
She puts more effort into her makeup routine than her own evil doings.
| Disney Villain | Score |
| Ursula | 4.16 👑 |
| Hades | 4.00 |
| Jafar | 3.83 |
| Shan Yu | 3.66 |
| Professor Ratican | 3.66 |
| Lyle Tiberius Rourke | 3.66 |
| Billy Pine, a.k.a Syndrome | 3.33 |
| Elsa of Arendelle | 3.16 |
| Hopper | 3.16 |
| Robert Callaghan | 3.00 |
Thank You For Reading
The other Disney BBEG contenders are right here.
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Gamer Peak 