Well I guess if I had to look at the 9 alignments in terms of entertainment:
Chaotic anything (good, neutral, and evil) will make for an entertaining/interesting character. On one side you have V from V For Vendetta (film), the guy who destroys and harms for the purpose of making the world a better place. The V in the comics is much more anarchic, and the comic itself contains more drugs, etc. Essentially, he is a freedom fighter, the part inside of everyone that wants to say “screw the law, screw red tape; I’m going to make the world a better place no matter the cost”. Another example is Iron Man from the recent movie, although not to such a drastic level as V.
On the other hand you have characters like The Joker in The Dark Knight. Essentially just doing whatever evil they can on a whim. Running around blowing things up, killing whoever in whichever way they want, and generally mocking the Lawful characters. I guess some people have an innate sort of feeling of needing anarchy, for whatever reason, but generally these aren’t the types of characters that people cheer for. Granted, I didn’t say they weren’t entertaining.
Chaotic Neutral is generally perceived as anarchy, or living on the whim to an extreme. Their only need is personal freedom, anything else doesn’t matter. Take for example Jack Sparrow from Pirates of the Caribbean, at one point stealing a ship (generally considered evil) but later killing a murderous bunch of undead pirates (generally considered good) all for his own profit (neutral). In films this is all well and good in the eyes of the audience if it creates some sort of comedy, or as long as the evil doesn’t outweigh the good. Essentially people wouldn’t have found Jack so attractive if he assaulted Elizabeth during their first encounter.
Lawful evil makes for a good villain character. This is essentially the evildoer hiding behind a massive corporation so he can use the profits for more crime. Examples of this would be Tony Stark’s rival Justin Hammer, or Kingpin from Daredevil. These types exploit honest workers, and the very foundations of modern society, resulting in a fairly easy to obtain negative reaction.
Lawful good characters are usually the incorruptible officers of the law type. These are the people with a deep sense of right and wrong, but no matter how hard they wish to rid the world of crime, are not willing to break it themselves to reach that goal. Film versions would be an early Nicholas Angel from Hot Fuzz (he becomes more of a neutral good towards the end of the film) as well as Gordon and Batman from most of The Dark Knight. Essentially the part where Batman is being physical with The Joker in the interrogation room is the explanation where Joker says something along the lines of “there is nothing you can do with all your strength to hurt me” and the “this is what happens when an immovable object meets an unstoppable force” are explanations that the chaotic evil character can go where the Lawful good cannot, in this case, the lawful good must transcend the boundaries of the law, and become neutral good.
Neutral good would be the action movie star that most people are accustomed to seeing. It’s the “good cop that can’t be stopped”, the Batman and Sergeant Angel that the audience sees towards the end of the films. These archetypes are able to go beyond what the law does, in Angel’s case, going on a massive gunfight to free the town. Batman creates the massive cell phone spying device to save Gotham from the Joker. Both acts would violate Lawful Good, because it would create an obvious moral dilemma, but not being liable to the law for damage done or lives lost solves this.
Lawful neutral characters usually undergo some sort of transformation. You have the person that follows the constructs of society, a law abider, someone who lives by one mantra, code, etc. These are typically the people portrayed as complacent with following orders, be they good or bad. For example, a soldier who is ordered to give out candy to children in a village and do it, yet would also carry out an execution of an innocent if ordered is this alignment. The closest character that represents this would be Matt Damon’s character in The Good Shepherd. A differing example would be Hajime Saito of Rurouni Kenshin, a character who follows a concept concerning slaying evil. Many of the soldiers in Avatar fit this category.
The final is true neutral. It is hard to define it as one thing or another, as it can have several meanings. To use a recent background, a neutral in Avatar would be a character who originally joins the fight against a group of Na’vi, but then switches sides in the fight to prevent the species from being wiped out. A true neutral could also exist to balance everything, being good at one moment, and even the next just so that neither extreme could dominate the other.
