Supervillians aren’t what they used to be.
Gru from the Despicable Me series is voiced by a 40 year old virgin and lives a dull suburban existence with his wife, four children and strange yellow pets.
Previously he had plans to steal the moon, but all he’s doing now is dreading his high school reunion. How bourgeois. Are we supposed to root for this colourless eunuch? And since when are villains protagonists?
One man who would never allow the villain to become the protagonist is Arnie. In his seminal 1985 film Commando, his Colonel John Matrix blew all the bad guys to smithereens. They were evil and deserved to die. Arnie didn’t waste time worrying about their domestic situations. He just shot the shit out of them.
Things pick up when Gru’s nemesis Maxime arrives with an admittedly very cool gun that turns people into cockroaches. The film peaks here, before descending into a flaccid mess where villain battles villain. A film without a hero may work for the wanky art house crowd, but it lost me. I wanted them both vanquished, preferably with a series of killer quips.
What this flagging series really needs is Colonel Matrix to wipe all this scum and their progeny from the face of the earth. Less villains, more heroes. Keep the cockroaches though.