In the Despicable Me universe, many of its bad guys strive for the title of “supervillain”. But
in terms of smarts - whether they be street-smarts, planning skills or a
talent for inventing - you have to wonder how many of them would qualify as ‘super-geniuses’.
Of course, there are plenty of dummies in the Despicable Me universe too,
especially in this latest film. But the question is:
How do all these characters compare to each other in terms of Brain Power?
I’m ____ from WickedBinge, and this is Minions 2: Dumb to Brilliant.
Just like with our previous videos, expect to see major spoilers for the latest Minions movie.
Additionally, while we may occasionally touch on the previous Minions film
since it’s part of the same spinoff series, this video is going to be primarily focused
on this most current movie. That also means that we’re pretty much going to be ignoring
everything from the main Despicable Me series for right now - but hey,
let us know if you want to see a Dumb to Brilliant video for that series too!
Alright, with all that said, let’s start with our first category:
the characters who are… Not The Brightest.
At the very bottom of our list, we have the newest Minion, Otto. Now, we don’t wanna be too harsh to
this little guy, but it just has to be said: this braces-wearing Minion is far from the smartest one
in the group - and considering how dumb the rest of them are at times, that’s certainly
saying something. Now, outside his dumbest moment (which we’ll get to in a moment), Otto is just
kind of oblivious in general. With how much he likes to talk and go on long-winded stories,
it can be hard for him to notice when people are annoyed or frustrated with him. To be fair,
this may not necessarily equate to him being dumb, he just may have a hard time understanding social
cues. This could also be the case whenever Gru or one of the other Minions trick him into playing a
‘game’ of sorts just so they can escape or get him to be quiet for a bit. But while we
could potentially excuse those moments, there’s really no excuse for the moment where he trades
the Zodiac Stone for a pet rock. Him getting distracted is somewhat understandable - he is
a Minion, after all - but trading away the one thing his boss needs to be a supervillain?
Yeahhh, that’s a pretty brain-dead move, and as such he easily earns this bottom spot.
For our runner-up dumbest character, we have Marlena, Gru’s mother. Marlena only gets a
couple brief scenes to herself in this movie, and she doesn’t prove to be all too smart in either
of them. In her second scene specifically, we see her trying to use the Minions to help
her sell tupperware. We aren’t quite sure how she thought that would be successful,
but maybe she just wanted some free labor and didn’t care about the quality of it.
Then, when the Vicious 6 break into her home, we see Marlena mouthing off to them and not taking
their threats very seriously before turning her back on them, allowing Nunchuck to tie her off.
This could be a mix of her being dumb and her just being apathetic and unimpressed by the team
of supervillains. Still, when you’ve got people in ‘halloween costumes’ with legitimate weapons,
it probably isn’t the brightest idea to be snarky and rude to them. Really, Marlena should consider
herself lucky that a busted roof was the only casualty that came from this interaction.
Finishing off our Not-So-Bright, we have Bob. Very much the Youngest Brother of the main Minion trio,
Bob is known for sometimes being a bit oblivious. Not to the level that Otto’s at,
but still a bit more oblivious than the average Minion. We’ve seen in both Minions movies how it
can sometimes be hard for Bob to fully realize the danger that he is. He also just comes off
as incredibly innocent and naive at times, like when he’s in a room full of mirrors and briefly
believes they’re other minions or when he’s able to still fall asleep even after hearing Scarlet’s
bedtime story. However, he doesn’t really have any incredibly dumb or potentially destructive moments
like the previously mentioned characters. We even see him use his cuteness and puppy-dog eyes to
his advantage a couple times, which implies he knows how to manipulate people somewhat.
For these reasons, we felt that he at the very least deserves to be at the top of this tier.
Our next section on this list is what we like to call Average Folks,
the characters who land somewhere in between Dumb and Brilliant.
Starting off this tier is the chaotic middle-child of the main Minion trio,
Stuart. Stuart, to put it simply, is just kind of lazy and more than a little reckless.
Whether he’s trying to fly a plane or trying to learn kung fu, he often just acts on impulse - or
just does whatever he thinks is funny. Because he isn’t always active in the action of these films
and is often assigned to be comedy relief, this can come off as him being pretty dumb. However,
there’s a pretty big difference between actually being dumb and just not trying to
make smart decisions. For what it’s worth, Stuart can occasionally pull off a move that implies he’s
got some skills in his little Minion brain. He’s one of the few Minions we see play an instrument,
that being his ukelele and guitar - and what’s more, he’s pretty talented at it. We also see
him wield Herb’s hypno-helmet in the first Minions movie and, like the rest of the trio,
we see him eventually figure out how to unleash his inner beast. It’s still hard to say how smart
Stuart truly is because he doesn’t apply himself too often, but we’re gonna cut him some slack.
Next up, we’re ranking most of the Vicious 6 - specifically Jean-Clawed, Nun-chuck, Svengeance
and Stronghold. Simply put, these guys are total followers - whether they’re following the lead of
their founder, Wild Knuckles, or the lead of their newly established leader, Belle Bottom. Although
we’ll acknowledge that they seem pretty competent when it comes to fighting and combat, a lot of
that seems more due to them brute-forcing it than actually being strategic. We see during the first
act’s chase scene that this lack of strategy can sometimes result in friendly fire, as we see both
Nun-chuck and Stronghold get hit with each other’s attacks. We also just had to once again mention
how dumb of an idea it was for them to help betray their original leader. While yes, they
are villains and it isn’t too unreasonable for villains to double-cross people, they still had
no actual reason to betray Wild Knuckles, who was a fair and useful leader until the very end. If
not for them just blindly going along with Belle Bottom’s plan, maybe they wouldn’t have eventually
been defeated by a 12 year old and his Minions at the end of the movie. But hey, live and learn.
For our last Average character, we have the Minion trio’s brave leader, Kevin.
Kevin is certainly one of the more thoughtful Minions, often having the most initiative and is
usually the most responsible Minion in the room. After all, he was the one who first decided to go
look for a new boss after decades of not having one. It may not be a super impressive level of
brain-power - which is why we can’t put him any higher - but it does help him stand out when
compared to other Minions. Not only is Kevin often able to lead the way, but he’s also been shown to
be pretty good at coming up with plans - like when he gets the idea to disguise himself and the rest
of the trio as pilots in order to get a flight to San Francisco or when he suggests using camouflage
to get past Wild Knuckles’ guards. Kevin is also pretty good at thinking on his feet, able to turn
things around when plans go wrong or when stuff starts to get crazy. So, while he may not be the
smartest character in the franchise, he’s definitely the smartest Minion.
Next up, we have the characters who are College Bound - the ones who are
just barely below our super geniuses.
First off, we have the fierce Master Chow. Kung Fu isn’t all about strong fists and fast feet,
you also need plenty of skill and strategy - and Chow has that in spades. She’s without a doubt a
master fighter, using both strength and strategy to take out opponents much bigger than her.
She’s also been a teacher for several years - and she’s an effective teacher at that,
even if her methods can sometimes be a bit harsh. Although she doesn’t usually use a weapon,
she’s able to use her environment to her advantage - as we see her do
during the fight in the alleyway outside her acupuncture clinic. Speaking of which,
it also takes a huge amount of skill, accuracy and knowledge of the human nervous system
to be an acupuncturist. Not only is Chow skilled enough to help her clients, but she’s even able
to use acupuncture as a means to smack other people around - as we see her do with Kevin.
Just a few points short of being considered a super genius, we’re ranking the villainous
prodigy, Gru. It really shouldn’t be too surprising to see Gru this high up, given how
successful he was as a villain even at a young age. While he’s willing to use other people’s
inventions, he’s more than capable of making his own. At the age of 12, he’s talented enough to
make a rocket bike, a cheese ray and a stink-bomb powerful enough to make an entire theatre full of
people abandon their movie. As for the inventions or items that weren’t made by him, such as
Nefario’s slime gun or the Zodiac Stone, he’s able to still figure out how to use them pretty quickly
without any help or outside instruction. Gru has also been shown to think fast on his feet,
allowing him to save himself when in danger or dodge powerful attacks. We see this when he’s
able to slow Svengence down using a building’s back door and when he’s able to evade Strongholds
van attack. So, with all these smart moments, why isn’t he higher? Simply put, Gru is still
just a kid. A smart kid, sure, but still a kid. He can be cocky and can sometimes make bad decisions
without thinking of the consequences. One example of this comes after he steals the Zodiac Stone
in the hopes of impressing the Vicious 6. Even after seeing how angry they are at him,
Gru still naively believes that once he returns the Stone, the group will acknowledge his skills
and want him to join them. Still, this is more him being naive and hopeful about his villainous idols
than him being outright dumb, so we aren’t going to take too many points off for this bad plan.
We’ve now arrived at the top of our list with our Genius-level characters.
For our Bronze Medal of Braininess, we’re giving it to Belle Bottom. This deadly disco-diva
certainly proves her worth throughout the film, even if she’s ultimately defeated in the end.
Unlike most of her teammates, Belle is able to actually fight with some strategy. We see at the
start of the film how she’s able to outmaneuver the Anti-Villain League, getting away without any
real trouble at all. Later on, we see her being able to avoid friendly fire from her teammates,
and she ends up being the closest one to catching Gru. But even after Gru escapes,
Belle is able to figure out where Gru lives and is eventually able to track him down again.
While we’d argue that the actual betrayal is both dumb AND unneccesary, Belle was still smart enough
to usurp the position of team leader. Not only that, but her plan regarding the Zodiac Stone
was pretty much flawless. Had it not been for Gru and Wild Knuckles interfering, she and the other
Vicious 6 members could have very easily defeated the AVL. But while Belle has a lot going for her,
there are still just a couple more characters that we feel manage to be smarter than her.
The Silver Medal of Braininess is going to Wild Knuckles. You don’t get to be Top
Dog of your villain team without having some brain power, and Wild Knuckles seems to have
plenty of it. One of the first scenes we see is him solving a temple puzzle. Granted it was a
pretty simple puzzle, but still! Throughout the rest of the film, we continue seeing examples
of Wild Knuckles being both smart and strategic. It’s implied that he’s been able to pull several
successful heists - including the one that we see him do with Gru. Much like Belle and Chow,
Wild Knuckles is one of the few characters we see fight with actual strategies and skill instead
of just brute force. One of his most impressive scenes is when he’s able to take out his guards
in only three moves, even using one guy’s chest hair as a means to briefly blind him.
In all honesty, Knuckles could have very easily been our smartest character - and in a way,
he still is. He’s the smartest when it comes to street-smarts and fighting. However, when it comes
to more ‘traditional’ book smarts, one character is able to outmatch him in terms of brain-power.
Finally, we’re giving our Gold Medal of Braininess to Dr. Nefario. Long before he became somewhat
senial and easily confused, Nefario was a true-blue mad scientist - and a successful
one at that. He’s one of two inventors that we see in the second film, with the second one - of
course - being Gru. But as we mentioned, Gru still has some childishness that’s holding him back.
Nefario, however, doesn’t have that weakness. Also, let’s face it, his slime gun is both
impressive and extremely effective. While we don’t see many more of his inventions, it’s still
implied that he’s made plenty of successful ones - otherwise, why would the Vicious 6 bother keeping
him around? His engineering skills are also shown to be pretty useful. We see at the very end of the
movie that he was the one who invented Gru’s rocket-car that we see him driving in the main
Despicable Me franchise. Overall, while he may not have a huge role in the second Minions movie,
his brief amount of screentime still gives plenty of time to shine - and honestly, it’s just nice
to see this guy in his prime. When it comes to inventing skills and scientific know-how,
there’s no one else more fitting for the title of Most Brilliant Minions 2 character.
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 Dumb to Brilliant playlist,
where we figure out which characters have the most wits. But most importantly, stay wicked!