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( He demands $1m to not destroy the planet, only to be informed politely that this really isn’t very much in today’s money.) The vulnerable villain idea was done with more flair the same year in Megamind, and probably has its roots in Mike Myers’s Austin Powers series, where the character of Dr Evil was forever being made a laughing stock by his inability to catch up with the modern world after decades in the cryogenic deep-freeze. They first appeared in 2010 in Despicable Me, a computer-animated comedy about the petty, insecure Gru (voiced by Steve Carell), who plans to steal the moon to establish himself as the world’s foremost super-villain, but still has to deal with humdrum problems such as the neighbour’s dog using his garden as a toilet. It is difficult now to remember a time when the landscape of family entertainment wasn’t dominated and overrun by these helium-voiced, gobbledygook-spouting, custard-coloured wannabe Weebles.
How do you solve a problem like the Minions? Without resorting, that is, to fantasies of a sledgehammer rampage to eradicate the little blighters.