Jerks Are Worse than Villains (Illumination): Part 1
Note: Migration and The Grinch are not included on the list because they have no true unlikable antagonists other than Chef.
Despicable Me: Vector is a smug, egotistical asshole who kidnaps the girls solely to spite Gru and refuses to give them back after Gru gives up the moon, but his goofy personality, wacky antics, and incompetence make him outright impossible to hate. Likewise, while there isn't much to talk about Mr. Perkins, the owner of the Bank of Evil and Vector's father, he's more of a Straight Man than anything as his reasons for not wanting to fund Gru's schemes are completely understandable and he is further humanized by his sincere love for his son. On the other hand, the unnamed Jerkass carnival barker who taunts and rips off Gru, Margo, Edith, and Agnes in the carnival scene doesn't get much love for being a complete jackass to them over a rigged technicality with his shooting range booth's game and refuses the girls their rightly deserved prize over Exact Words, but he goes off lightly due to being a Large Ham One-Scene Wonder and getting his comeuppance by Gru completely destroying his booth and winning the girls the prize. In stark contrast, Miss Hattie is the most repugnant, reviled, and despicable character in the film due to her callous nature (especially where the girls are concerned), her more realistic cruelty, her complete lack of any redeeming qualities, and ending up a Karma Houdini.
Hop: Carlos is a devious and brooding and somewhat petty but still laughably evil charming villain with great voice acting who is a chick who showed annoyance over having Mr. Bunny and the other rabbits not give himself and the chicks in the Easter preparations or considering making him the next-in-line Easter Chick and give the chicks a swing at serving as the commanders for Easter and him choosing to overthrow and kill Mr. Bunny and his friends and family rather than just try to ask him some more for the position made sense over the fact that he never once approved of his idea and his one-winged angel form in the climax was also pretty great, and gets a satisfying comeuppance when he is demoted to one of the chicks pulling the egg sleigh for the rest of his life while Phil becomes the new leader of the chicks, Phil also gets some love over the fact that he was never a villain himself but just doing whatever he thought made Carlos happy until he reconsiders it at the very end through E.B's music. (Because you were nice to me) The Pink Berets are also loved and respected despite their little screen time and audiences thought that they deserved more...
Mr. Bunny, E.B.'s father and Fred O' Hare's family are not any better considering the fact Mr. Bunny acted like a disrespectful and unintentionally unsympathetic father to E.B. for his passion of becoming a drummer that his unseen mother Mrs. Bunny likely introduced him to and forces him to become the Easter Bunny and not become the drummer he dreamed of becoming and even going far as to call him selfish for it just for having self doubts and second thoughts about taking the role when assuming that drumming is all that he is good at, rather than just choose under one of his kids to take on the role since rabbits are born in litters to take on the role leaving E.B. no choice but to run away from home to achieve his dream (Until he undergoes his character development where he decides to accept his role as the Easter Bunny and learns that he is in fact worthy for it and he can still be a drummer when he doesn't do it.) while Fred's family act disrespectfully towards Fred for being an unemployed lazy bum as they forcibly make him leave their house, try to apply for a job and housesit the mansion of the boss of Fred's sister with an implied death threat and were the primary reason Fred antagonized and got off on the wrong foot with E.B. at first while he stayed at the mansion with him for a while to avoid getting himself in trouble with his sister until he makes amends with him for it at the end, when both sides learn that they are not so different after all and Fred's adoptive sister had annoying and off-key but also funny singing at her school's Easter pendant which even E.B. despised and she and Fred's father get annoyed at Fred for stealing the spotlight with E.B. who he pretended was his ventriloquist dummy to the point where Fred's adoptive sister steals the flowers Fred was given by some kid actors for the pendant for his performance.
Although Mr. Bunny does eventually show remorse over his actions and apologize and make amends with E.B. who in return does the same with his father and accepts his position as the Easter Bunny and serve as a drummer when he is not doing the job, the redemptions of Fred's family and their apology felt quite unearned and not heartily said because they don't do anything valuable to redeem themselves in the meantime. Although Fred's father does still at least apologize heartily himself.
Mrs. Bunny, E.B.'s mother and his siblings also never appear either... (And typically rabbits are born in litters)
The Lorax (2012): The Once-ler's family are more hateable and detestable than the Once-ler himself and even O'Hare. Whereas the Once-ler is a sympathetic villain who simply went down the wrong path because of his family's presence, and O'Hare is a Love to Hate guy, the Once-ler's family are shown to be realistically abusive towards the Once-ler and are the reason why he started chopping down the trees to begin with, and when everything went downhill, they abandoned him, taking no accountability for anything at all.
Sing (2016): Although there are no real villains in the movie as all its conflict just comes from Buster Moon trying to save his theater from closure and the personal conflicts of the constants for the singing competition in terms of insecurities and struggles with their friends and families (Ash, Meena, Rosita and Johnny), the closet things there are to antagonists are Mike, Judith and the Bears themselves.
Mike, a money-greedy jazz musician as well as the bears that he cheated on which indirectly cause Moon Theater's destruction get some love and appreciation for their charm and deviousness and wisecracking attitudes while Lance, Ash's boyfriend who cheats on her and gets a new girl Becky due to her neglecting him for her rehearsals in the singing competition in her own apartment due have a somewhat understandable freudian excuse for doing so, and gets some charm himself. The bears also had a good reason why they feuded with Mike at first for cheating on them for their money, Johnny's father Big Daddy, while not actually a villain is an anti-hero with a well-written redemption arc.
Judith, Buster Moon's bank representative isn't any better considering the fact that she acts so unsympathetic and unsupportive towards Buster not in a nice but rather obnoxious, naggy, strict and harsh way when his theater struggles and when Buster decides to put on his singing competition in a last ditch effort in order to save his theater, the llama gives the koala absolutely zero support for his show and threatens to have the bank possess the theater if his singing competition doesn't go great as planned and evict Buster which would leave the koala homeless and jobless and after the theater is destroyed, Judith possess the theater and evicts Buster with absolutely zero sympathy and it caused with the disastrous show caused the koala to fall into depression and despair and give up all hope of being the showman he is again until Eddie and Meena convince him to reconsider. The writers try to excuse Judith's actions over her only doing her job as the bank representative that she is, and a lawfully neutral citizen, but she still does so in a selfish and nasty kind of way, and treating Buster and his friends like they are the bad guys for breaking the rules for the right reason despite it not being that big of a deal in reality and she has Buster listed as a danger to society for the incident over the theater's destruction despite it all being Mike and the Bears' fault, Buster never intended for it all to happen.
Later on in the movie, when Buster and the protagonists decide to have the singing competition in the lot of the former theater just for fun, Judith tries to intervene during Ash's performance of "Set It All Free" and order Buster to shut the show down and send everyone home simply because they are trespassing on her private property, despite it not being a real crime, as the police were in full-approval and when they refuse and continue the show, Judith remorselessly tries to telephone the police and force them to come and arrest everyone for trespassing the lot, including Rosita's kids, who are children for crying out loud, showing that she would hurt a child!
Judith only sees the error of her ways and reforms after Ash's performance ends as she never calls the police to arrest everyone and shut the show down but instead stays to watch the show and after it ends allows Nana Goodleman who also attended to buy the lot and have the theater rebuilt and reopened, even awkwardly attending its re-opening ceremony. But many audiences saw Judith's redemption was pointless, unearned and a little too late because she never expresses any remorse over her actions, apologizes or even admits that she was wrong, and her post-redeemed self hardly got any time onscreen. But since the llama never appeared again throughout the rest of the Sing franchise since then even in Sing 2 and Sing: Thriller, its safe to assume that she got some sort of offscreen punishment for her actions by being fired from her job as bank representative, or arrested by the police and given community service for using abuse authority while doing so or even given a taste of her own medicine for how she treated Buster by also being left homeless and jobless or was written out altogether for being too unlikable.
Despicable Me 3 (2017): Balthazar Bratt is a mischievous but in a laughably evil type way and soiopthaic man-child villain who is obsessed with destroying and having revenge on Los Angeles and its residents for cancelling his show due to him hitting puberty after only performing as a child in it at first, and even doesn't hesitate in hurting or worse killing Agnes, Edith and Margo and Lucky the Goat, much like how Vector threatened to kill Agnes, Edith and Margo in the first movie, but gets a lot of charm for his 80s vibe styles, technology and the good performance his voice actor puts on for him in the movie.
Valerie Da Vinci, the new CEO of the anti-villain league after Silas Ramsbottom retires briefly however, isn't any better and is far more unlikable considering the fact that she basically does a slacking job as new leader of the agency, doing it more for the fame instead of helping the other people and she barges in and kicks out Silas during his retirement without giving him a proper exit just for being "old" and mercilessly fires Gru from the agency not for his failure to arrest Balthazar but also stopping his theft of the diamond, which she also acted ungrateful towards (Ungrateful bastard) but simply because she has biases towards villains former or official like Gru himself and skepticism over them being agents in the anti-villain league and fires Lucy as well simply for being on Gru's side of the agreement over his firing being a bad thing. Valerie also never tries to have the agency do anything valuable to find and arrest Balthazar and stop his evil plans even after he successfully steals the diamond later on in the meantime. Valerie never appears again since then (Except in Gru's imagination over him and Lucy getting rehired at the anti-villain league for stopping Balthazar's evil plans by stealing back the diamond, but even if it did work, it all would have been for nothing because they still failed to arrest Balthazar.) even after Gru and Lucy are rehired as secret agents at the anti-villain league at the end for stopping and arresting Balthazar and its unclear if she ever got any sort of comeuppance for her actions or even apologized to Gru and Lucy and admitted how wrong she was.
But due to Valerie's absence in the fourth movie, its safe to assume that like Judith in the first Sing movie, she got some sort of offscreen comeuppance for her actions offscreen when Gru and Lucy made Silas aware of how poorly she does at her job as the new leader of the agency and disrespected them poorly and got her fired and given a way harsher punishment for it while Silas resumed his position as the head of the anti-villain league for being the more rightful leader.
The minions including Stuart, Bob and Kevin themselves also build around his troupe considering the fact that they all expect for two of the minions cut their losses and leave Gru's service simply because they grew bored over them not really being needed due to Gru and Lucy being busy and handling their secret agent duties more on their own and wishing to return to villainy which Gru refuses to have them resume out of morality even after he and Lucy get fired, and they get themselves into some trouble at a singing performance for trespassing and got arrested and sent to prison, until they realize the error of their ways and escape and reunite with and reconcile with Gru and aid him and his family in defeating Balthazar in the climax and serve him in his service again even if they did choose to accompany Dru in the villainy he planned to commit behind Gru and Lucy's backs before they stop him.
Sing 2 (2021): Jimmy Crystal appears as the main villain of the movie, and is a hate sink who runs Crystal Entertainment, with control freak mannerisms and a hair-trigger temper one of the finest media companies in Redshore City and acts as an abusive father to Porsha Crystal blackmailing her into performing into the musical plays at his theater in the lead roles to make him and his family look famous despite her poor acting skills to return his love and respect in return and destroying Suki Lane's enthusiasm with his wrath as her bad boss before Buster helps her restore it and worst of all remorselessly sadistically kills the theater managers who don't give him the musical plays that he wants done his way performed perfectly at his theater by dropping them off the roof of his skyscraper and watching them fall to their painful deaths below and lying about it to the public (He said that the managers committed suicide, for unknown reasons and hid their corpses, until Suki reports Jimmy's crimes to the police at the end and has him arrested for them as a good comeuppance for them.) and almost tried to force Buster to endure the same fate twice but luckily failed due to the actions of Rosita and Jerry, but he still gets some love and appreciation from others for his devious and brooding attitudes and looks, love to hate qualities, his voice actor Bobby Cannavale's performance of him and him being a superior villain to Judith from the first movie in addition to being the good evil and darker counterpart to Buster Moon, Rosita and Clay Calloway altogether.
Porsha Crystal and Suki Lane as well as Jerry and Linda Le Bon also get some love and appreciation for not being that annoying or even real villains or antagonists but simply innocents pressured by Jimmy to do as he says with his wrath even if Linda and Jerry were both confirmed to be in fact aligned with Jimmy despite his villainy at the end and Porsha and Suki both have a freudian excuse over their own wrongdoings in terms of it coming from to avoid the wrath of Jimmy before they both learn to stand up for him at the end instead of hiding from it because hiding never helps according to Clay and were revealed to be misunderstood loners with hearts of gold with Suki just learning to act honest for necessary reasons rather than tell hurtful lies to get people off her back and have faith in Buster and his friends to protect themselves from Jimmy during her time with Buster and his crew to show much she truly cares while Porsha learns not to act overly emotional even when Buster tells her bad truths because they could lead to even bigger consequences and also act honest about her own problems and self-esteem rather than play the spoiled brat up until then and show the world what she is truly made off.
Porsha and Suki also have gorgeous designs and Halsey and Chelsea Peretti do great jobs voicing them and Porsha's song, "It Could Have Been Me" was great and she and Suki go on great redemption arcs where they learn to stand up to Jimmy for his villainy and break away from him to persuade their own lives and ambitions at the end. Many also consider them to be so much better versions of Judith and Mike from the first Sing movie for shedding all the unlikable habits those characters had in the first movie and have more sympathetic qualities.
Klaus KickenBlober however, isn't any better and is way more unlikable considering the fact that he acts as a overly strict and obnoxious dance coach/choreographer towards Johnny causing the gorilla to lose his confidence with his strict teachings and nagginess (Buster never even sees what a bad dance coach Klaus is and take action towards it by firing him and hiring a new nicer one.) and overwhelms him with it to the point where Johnny briefly loses his temper and breaks his skateboard at one point but he quickly came to regret it before recruiting Nooshy to be his new dance coach. His attitudes also almost convinced Johnny to quit dancing before Nooshy convinces him otherwise. Klaus also assumed that suffering is the only way you can achieve greatness!
(Deja Vu to how Chief Bogo in the Zootopia movies unfairly nags and makes his cops suffer with his strictness just to toughen them up to become the perfectly good cops he wants them to become especially for Nick Wilde and Judy Hopps and while their dysfunctions and partnership were agreeably annoying, it didn't mean that the buffalo had the right to act that harsh on the fox and bunny for it, because emotional support from their close friends like their new ones Gary De' Snake and Nibbles the Beaver turned out to be the solution to their problem, not therapy or strictness.)
Klaus even grew jealous of Nooshy's teachings when after it makes Johnny a far better and more popular dancer in the Planet of War dance fight scene in Out of This World to the point where she steals Ryan's place as a performer and beats down Johnny in order to steal his spotlight and would have gotten away with it if it were not for Nooshy and the other performers encouraging Johnny to stand back up again and defeat Klaus single-handedly in combat. It was satisfying to see Klaus get karma for his actions when Johnny beats him up and Klaus sees the error of his ways and gives the gorilla his most humblest of apologies. Porsha also insults Klaus though intentionally earlier on by calling him a, "Funny looking guy".
Minions: The Rise of Gru (2022): Gru did act unlikable towards the minions at first since he basically fires all of them for one single mistake that Otto committed trading the zodiac stone precious for villains and seeing them as bad and incompetent henchmen when they kinda were not in reality expect for Otto despite Kevin's attempts to convince Gru otherwise and Otto can also sometimes get some hate for his mistake too, compared to the charm and love of the Vicious Six despite refusing Gru into their team simply just for being a "kid" but Gru luckily gets better and reconciles with and rehires the minions at the end though Otto never suffers any harsh consequences for his mistake.
