While the world has no shortage of actual evil people, our supply of Hollywood villains has run shockingly low. Instead of a valiant hero saving the world against impossible odds, most action movies feature the good guy beating an enemy who wouldn't frighten the Little Mermaid.

Forget a black hat; today's bad guy is lucky if he's not wearing a pink tutu and bunny slippers. In most films these tired, uninspiring "evil geniuses" have as much chance of achieving their villainous goals as Gargamel did of successfully eating a Smurf.

Perhaps this has happened because America no longer has any real enemies. Sure, we have Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden, Jesse Helms and whoever created "Touched By an Angel," but those are specific people, not the vague, mass evil that movie producers love. All of those folks might represent specific threats to America, but they don't inspire the hysteria that our old friends from the USSR provided for so many years. Frankly, at least in the world of celluloid villainy, things have gone steadily downhill since the Soviet Union broke up (which I blame on Yoko Ono).

Instead of these conveniently evil "red" communists bedecked in silly fur hats, with a gallon of vodka in one hand and a jug of borscht in the other, we're stuck with baddies from fictional "Sovietesque" countries. These tepid villains generally have either unrecognizable (or French) accents, greasy hair and a collection of associates so incompetent they make the Penguin's henchmen look like Navy SEALS. Even our fictional space bad guys have taken a turn for the worse, as Darth Maul has proven a poor understudy to his Star Wars predecessor. While just the sound of Darth Vader's asthmatic wheeze sends a chill down my spine, I'm not sure if Darth Maul would frighten me if he showed up at my office.

Luke Skywalker's father represented such evil that even my Darth Vader Pez dispenser scares me. Despite its ability to hand out sugary snacks, lack of arms and less than impressive height, this dark lord of the candy force simply radiates villainy.

Luckily, my mini Vader has no legs, which limits its ability to do me any harm. It's also an inanimate object, and with the possible exception of Al Gore, these rarely do any real damage.

With the Soviets in our past, Vader dead, the Klingons switching sides and Clubber Lang nowhere to be found, America's action stars desperately need some new blood. No one will go to see Stallone, Van Damme, or even the once mighty Seagal fight our current crop of villains.

Everyone knows that in Hollywood, good triumphs over evil, but the best films at least occasionally made you doubt that. In recent movies, the bad guy's chances have been about as remote as Pat Buchanan's chance of securing the Republican presidential nomination. Even with the outcome predetermined, the 1999 version of badness should include more than the non-frightening collection of maniacal billionaires, evil leprechauns and foreign caricatures currently being thrown at us. I'm not asking for a Goldfinger, a Joker or even a Skeletor, but there has to be something better than current group of wishy-washy wusses today's films pass off as evil.