Although it’s villain repertoire isn’t quite as popular as the villains from Disney, Pixar or
Dreamworks, Illumination still has more than a few notable baddies. They can be funny, intimidating
and pretty dang evil - and it looks like we’re going to be getting a few more new villains in
Illumination’s upcoming film, “Minions: The Rise of Gru”. Before that film comes out, however,
we want to take a look at Illumination’s current villain line-up to see who ranks supreme.
I’m Kifinosi with WickedBinge, and this is Illumination Villains: Bad to Evil.
Naturally, we’re going to be starting with the least evil
villains before working our way up to the most cruel and the wicked.
For our least bad villain, we’ve selected The Grinch. Whether you like this incarnation or not,
the Grinch still technically counts as a villain, even if he isn’t nearly as nasty
as the Chuck Jones incarnation or the Jim Carrey incarnation. Like those previous incarnations,
the Grinch can be a bit of a jerk, usually for no good reason. We see this through the first part of
the film where he casually messes with people in the hopes of ruining their day - from wrecking a
kid’s snowman to purposely breaking a jar of jam that someone wanted. We also have to mention the
Grinch’s status as a thief - the guy literally stole all the decorations and gifts in Whoville.
But despite this, the Grinch actually has more than a few good qualities too. He was pretty
kind towards both his dog, Max, as well as his reindeer, and outside of grand theft and petty
jerkiness, he doesn’t do too many actual crimes. For these reasons, he’s getting ranked here.
Next up on our list is the bunny villain turned eventual hero, Snowball. Snowball
was the leading member of the Flushed Pets after being deserted by his owner. Despite his cute
appearance, he was pretty dedicated to his gang throughout the first “Secret Life of Pets” film,
more than happy with his life of crime and being more than willing to threaten
any house pets or humans that get in his way. He even tried to kill Max and Duke as
revenge for them accidentally killing Viper. Snowball also hoped to take over the world,
being seen as relatively ‘insane’ as well as an ‘evil mastermind’ of sorts. Eventually though,
Snowball finds love again through a young girl named Molly, and then becomes a superhero named
Captain Snowball in the sequel. He’s not the most competent hero, but he still tries to help at the
very least. Much like the Grinch and Gru, who we felt was too good to be put on this list,
Snowball actually has a pretty good heart - even if he tried to hide it at first.
Following him is a more recent baddie, Klaus Kickenklober. Though not nearly as bad as the
film’s main antagonist - and don’t worry, we’ll get to him - Klaus does more than
enough to earn the antagonist status. He’s no master thief or supervillain, but he is a huge
jerk and may even fall under abusive, given his teaching methods. Being a teacher who demands
perfection from the start, Klaus takes any failure from his students personally. We see
this through his interactions with Johnny, who he constantly berates both verbally and
physically. But even after Johnny becomes a dancer, Klaus still isn’t happy. Believing
that Johnny doesn’t deserve to be considered a good dancer, Klaus takes it upon himself to
try and sabotage Johnny during his “Sky Full of Stars” performance - and even nearly succeeds!
If not for Nooshy’s encouragement and Johnny’s refusal to give up,
Klaus would have completely ruined Johnny’s performance for really no good reason. Again,
not a hugely villainous act compared to our upcoming bad guys, but still incredibly callous
and selfish. Thankfully, Klaus does redeem himself somewhat after he gives Johnny some respect after
Johnny wins their dance battle. Still… would it have killed the guy to give an actual apology?
Getting a quick mention is the secondary antagonist of the first “Minions” movie,
Herb Overkill, husband to Scarlet Overkill. We’ve mentioned before how Herb is a pretty
chill and friendly guy, even towards the Minions despite them becoming his wife’s enemies.
Speaking of which, Herb is also an incredibly supportive and doting husband to his wife - which,
say what you will about his morality, is still incredibly sweet. But even so, we can’t deny that
Herb is still an accomplice to his wife’s evil actions. If not for his inventions and support,
you could make an argument that Scarlet maybe wouldn’t be as powerful or as successful as she
is. We also can’t forget how, while not having any harsh feelings towards them,
Herb still tried to torture and kill the Minions under his wife’s orders.
“Following orders” and “being supportive” aren’t really good excuses for any evil
actions, but his likable and not-too-evil personality keeps him from going any lower.
Going back to the studio’s Dr. Suess adaptations, our next villain is The Once-ler. Don’t worry,
we aren’t going to be delving into the craziness that was the Tumblr Once-ler fandom here. While
we’re willing to cut the Once-ler a bit of slack, as it was never his original intent to destroy
all trees and he clearly regretted his actions once he fully realized the devastation of them.
Even so, it was still the Once-ler’s choice to continually disregard the Lorax’s warnings for
the sake of both financial gain and the temporary respect of his manipulative family. The infamous
“How Bad Can I Be?” montage also showed how much of a shady businessman the Once-ler became,
lying about things like having the Lorax’s approval and donating a portion of profits
to charity. Even if he did try to correct his mistakes eventually, the Once-ler did
enough damage and made enough selfish choices to earn himself a decent spot on our list.
Up next is the cowardly yes-man (er, yes-cat?), Jerry. Jerry is the main
personal assistant to Jimmy Crystal. However, unlike Suki who is just doing
her job for the most part and is willing to step in when Jimmy goes too far, Jerry is
much more blatant about how much he’s willing to overlook and even support his
boss’ unacceptable behavior. Jerry is the one who tells Jimmy about the Moon Theatre Troupe’s show,
and is also the one who frees Jimmy after Buster briefly captures him, giving Jimmy another chance
to try and kill Buster. But even after that, Jerry goes so far as to claim that Jimmy is “completely
innocent” when he sees the wolf getting arrested, along with declaring his love for him. We’ve all
seen those yes-man characters who seem to stick by their evil bosses no matter what, but given
how cowardly Jerry is and how much he outright refuses to hold Jimmy accountable, he really is
one of the worst - more so than Herb Overkill, despite the two of them serving similar roles.
Returning to “The Lorax”, we have Aloysius O'Hare next. While we can’t call him an impressive
villain - in fact he’s… pretty pathetic - he still manages to be decently evil.
Aloysius serves as Thneedville’s greedy and corrupt mayor. Having been the one who
originally thought of the idea of selling oxygen tanks, Aloysius cares more about making money and
forcing people to continue to buy his product than doing anything to actually help his people. When
Ted starts asking about trees and threatens his status, Aloysius does all he can to try and stop
him - from not-so-subtly threatening Ted and his family to outright chasing them down in the
hopes of destroying the last truffula tree seed. Still, for as greedy and sketchy as Aloysius is,
that’s pretty much the extent of his evil deeds. He may not have any redeeming qualities,
but he’s no supervillain or attempted murderer either. As such, we can’t put him any lower.
Next is the first Despicable Me’s Miss Hattie, the head of the orphanage. Filled with condescending
contempt for the children she’s forced to look after, Miss Hattie rules her orphanage with an
iron fist. When one of her first moments is her reminding a trio of girls that they’ll likely
never get adopted, you just know that she’s a terrible person. We also can’t forget her
“Box of Shame” that she uses whenever the orphans don’t sell enough cookies. It’s almost comical
how unapologetically mean she is - or at least it would be funny, if it weren’t so unlikable
and outright frustrating. This is honestly why she gets such a low spot, despite her actions
not being as big as those from the Once-ler or Aloysius. But as much as we may hate her,
Miss Hattie’s evilness doesn’t quite top those in the lower half of our list.
Managing to get a good spot on the pecking order is Carlos. Although not a fully animated
Illumination movie, “Hop” was one of the studio’s original hits, so we felt he deserved a mention.
Being the head chick of the Easter Bunny’s operation, it was Carlos who, after getting
fed up with bunnies getting all the fame and glory of Easter, led a revolution in an attempt
to earn the title of the Easter Chick. He can be very arrogant, as well as pretty manipulative,
given the fake kind persona that he uses to get Mr. Bunny’s guard down. Along with trying
to seize control of the Easter factory and usurp the Easter Bunny family from their holiday title,
Carlos also tried to kill both Mr. Bunny and Fred, threatening to drop them into
a vat of boiling liquid candy. Yikes… He also wanted to give the children of the world worms
and bird seed instead of candy which, while not evil persay, is still pretty gross.
While he’s pretty silly, Carlos shows that even a cute and fluffy chick can have a pretty evil core.
We’re going to be ranking El Macho next. Out of all the main Despicable Me villains we’ve
seen so far, El Macho is probably the nicest - while still being pretty evil,
of course. In his hayday, he’d frequently rob armored trucks, and years later he tried to take
over the world using rabid Minions. El Macho had also been willing to kill both Gru and
Lucy when they became a threat to his plans - and in a fairly violent way too, considering that he
nearly sent them into a volcano. This was kind of unfortunate to see, as before their falling out,
El Macho was actually a fairly decent guy. He was friendly towards Gru and his daughters,
consoling Gru when he was sad about Lucy leaving and even offering Gru an alliance with him before
learning that Gru wanted nothing more to do with evil. El Macho was also a good parent to his son
and a good caretaker to his pet chicken. While we can’t ignore the huge impacts he had as a villain,
both in the past and present, his genuinely kinder side keeps him from going any lower.
It really is a shame that he couldn’t turn his life around like Gru did.
Getting into our Bottom 5, we now have Sergei. Being the main villain in “The Secret Life
of Pets 2”, Sergei is an evil circus owner that couldn’t care less about his animals.
He’s cold-hearted and very much plays into the stereotype of the greedy circus owner.
As such, he’s naturally pretty cruel towards his performance animals and even his own workers.
What makes him one of the worst Illumination villains is just how far his abuse manages
to go. When Sergei first appears, we see him threatening to turn Hu,
a scared tiger cub, into a rug if he doesn’t give a successful performance. When Hu runs away,
he threatens to kill his wolves if they don't find him and when Sergei DOES find Hu,
he actually tries to kill the poor tiger! There aren’t any redeeming qualities to this character,
and the only reason he isn’t any higher is simply because he (thankfully) isn’t a global threat.
Up next is the villainous Vector. Being the representation of the ‘modern villain’ in
the first Despicable Me movie, Vector is a huge jerk and a totally annoying show off.
He’s obnoxious and, if his first interaction with Gru was any indication,
can’t really take a hint. Vector, however, isn’t all talk and can actually manage to be
pretty evil. While stealing famous landmarks may not seem like much when compared to attempted
murder or world domination, it doesn’t take him too long to get to the point of attempted murder.
In the climax of the film, Vector kidnaps and threatens Margo, Edith and Agnes,
not even keeping his word after Gru gives him the shrunken mood. It’s his reckless actions
that put the girls in danger, and he isn’t even remorseful about it - nor does he seem to care too
much about the safety of strangers or solicitors, given his over-the-top security system. So yeah,
Vector is pretty awful, but we felt that he isn’t quite Bottom 3 levels of awful - not
because there’s anything redeeming about him, but because our Bottom 3 baddies really are that bad.
Earning the Bronze Medal of Evil is the most recent Illumination villain at the time of
writing, Jimmy Crystal. If you thought an evil circus owner was bad, then how about an evil
businessman. A bit of a cliche, yes, but Jimmy still manages to be an effective and intimidating
villain regardless. Being someone who’s used to getting his way, Jimmy will both subtly
and not-so-subtly threaten others when they do something that angers him or threatens his
reputation. With a small army of security guards at his disposal, Jimmy tried to go after the Moon
Theatre troupe in the hopes of stopping their show and tried not once but TWICE to kill Buster Moon.
While attempted murder may be small potatoes when compared to our upcoming supervillains, it’s still
more than enough to get Jimmy a high ranking on our list simply because of how close Jimmy
was to succeeding. We have to wonder though… How many other employees has Jimmy nearly killed, and
how many attempts have succeeded? After all, there has to be a reason why his employees like Suki and
Jerry are so intimidated by him. Jimmy is also a terrible father towards his daughter, Porsha,
being dismissive of her and even insulting her when she’s upset instead of trying to comfort her.
Really, if not for our bottom two supervillains, he really would be considered as the Most Evil.
For our Silver Medal of Evil, we have the AVL’s Most Wanted, Balthazar Bratt. Originally an
80s child star, Bratt was willing to take his bitterness out on the world as a campy,
80s themed supervillain. He’s just as obnoxious as someone like Vector, but manages to work on a
grander scale and is also just more successful in general. Despite his goofy appearance,
Bratt manages to be a threat throughout the third Despicable Me film due to his
cleverness and his large array of gadgets. Outside of kidnapping and attempted murder,
Bratt also terrorizes Hollywood using a giant robot before threatening to lift
it up into outer space. Bratt is selfish, petty and almost managed to be the most evil
character in the Despicable Me franchise as well as in all of Illumination. Almost…
Getting our Gold Medal of Evil is the former Queen of Villainy, Scarlet Overkill.
For a time, she was the world’s number 1 villain. Although sometimes willing to be nice and sweet,
Scarlett is ambitious, clever, cruel and VERY vengeful. This is obvious when she took Bob
and Stuart hostage and threatened to kill them if Kevin didn’t give her the Queen’s
crown. Scarlet can also be somewhat of a hypocrite, given that the Minions
technically did what she asked of them, despite things not going as planned. But even after this
success, she still wanted to torture and kill them just because they briefly ‘betrayed’ her and stole
her glory. Although it wasn’t too surprising, we suppose, given that she threatened to “blow them
off the face of the Earth” if they did anything wrong or stupid. Still, we have to wonder… If her
affection towards the Minions was conditional, is her affection towards her husband, Herb, the same?
They seem like a happy couple on the surface, but given just how cruel and selfish Scarlet can be,
it’s really hard to say how she would take a betrayal from Herb if it ever were to happen.
Beyond Scarlet’s low morality and vindictive nature, we also have to give Scarlett credit
for being the most successful out of all the Illumination villains we’ve seen so far. No,
she couldn’t defeat the Minions in the end, but she managed to cause quite a bit of damage
in the meantime, not to mention all the other successful evil plans she conducted in her past.
For all these reasons, she more than earned the title of Most Evil Illumination Villain.
But let us know in the comment section if you agree with our ranking,
and tell us what we should cover next. Remember to hit that notification bell and binge our Good to
Evil playlist, where we break down the morality of the characters in your favorite cartoons,
shows and movies. But most importantly, stay wicked.