How do you feel about the 'classic' villain monologue about their plans?

[Naruzeldamaster]

That one scene from the Incredibles movie always pops into my head -- "You sly dog! You've got me monologuing!"

The fact that it isn't just a silly joke for the audience, but also a canon problem for the super villains is hilarious.
Lore wise, they imply that the villains are actually aware of the nonsense, but they can't help themselves. It's not treated as a 'joke' in universe, but an actual thing.

 

[xena]

Yes, it works great (at least sometimes) on the stage where a character is explaining his inner thoughts not to another character but to the audience. We can use the interior monologue for that but stories these days rarely do an omniscient peek inside the villain's head.

That's true. I don't think I can remember the last time I read a book where they did

 

[xena]

Done right the laura croft example can work.
But if it's just 'randomly' thrown in, yeah, it's blatantly obvious the information isn't intended for the character in question (In this case Laura)
That seems to happen quite a bit throughout the Toomb Raider series, though the most egregious ones are the reboot series. Where she just literally happens to arrive as the enemy big bad is explaining plans. (And somehow gets away with it by hiding behind some crates or shit, I mean plot armor gonna plot armor but still, yikes.) Often, she hears just enough of the guy's plan to go 'ok they're crazy' lol

Agreed! Done right, it can work really well. But most times it's clearly not meant for the characters, rather the audience