Balthazar Bratt is the main antagonist of Universal•Illumination's 2017 animated feature film Despicable Me 3. He was once the star of a television show before it was cancelled due to puberty. Bent on getting revenge against Hollywood for ousting him, he plans to get rid of the iconic studio by making it float away into outer space. He is also Clive's boss and the archenemy of Gru.
Background[]
During his youth, Balthazar Bratt played the title character in his self-titled series Evil Bratt, which revolved around him performing various evil deeds (such as robbing banks, defeating armies, destroying cities, and anything else dastardly). Bratt loved his popularity & his own actions he does. Although the series was beloved worldwide, Bratt hit puberty during the 3rd season, causing the series to fall from popularity and was canceled soon after. Bratt, having his reputation and career destroyed by his fall from grace, immediately turned to a life of crime, believing himself to be Evil Bratt & becoming very real as the character he used to play.
Personality[]
Balthazar Bratt was nothing more or less than a pure megalomaniac with complete egotism. He is a purely selfish who thinks almost only on himself and only on his actions. In addition to being an egotistical megalomaniac, Bratt is an extremely ruthless and destructive individual who shows no mercy towards his enemies especially when he attempted to destroy Hollywood and mostly, he enjoys wreaking havoc and destruction as revenge on them for canceling his Evil Bratt show and decimating his career. And given the fact that over three decades have passed since Evil Bratt was canceled, it's likely that just about everyone involved in Bratt's show ending has since retired and moved away from Hollywood, making his revenge hit people who've done nothing to him, meaning that his so-called "tragedy" was never valid in the first place.
Yet, Bratt sees no evil in his actions, which means that he is a pretentious and delusional individual who had lost faith in the world, and he is also extremely vindictive and cruel, as all he wanted was to destroy Hollywood as revenge for canceling his TV show. In addition to this goal, Bratt sought what all supervillains sought; to gain world domination after he destroyed Hollywood. In addition to his dangerous, megalomaniacal, violent, and evil personality, Bratt is a man who lost his time: Stuck in the past, he always lives in the bubble of himself, which means that he always likes to listen to music from the 80s (such as the songs "Bad" by the late Michael Jackson, "Take on Me" by A-ha, or "Into the Groove" by Madonna, to name but a few), why he always acts like a man in the 80s.
Bratt is also an extremely puerile, manipulative and cunning individual; for example, when he uses his skills of mastery of disguise, Bratt can pose himself as an obese jewel expert to steal the DuPont Diamond from Paris and also impersonating Lucy Wilde, succeeded in manipulating Gru and kidnapping the girls.
Physical appearances[]
As a child, Bratt was an adorable child of small stature and wore a purple blazer with shoulder pads and a white shirt underneath, he also wore purple parachute pants and black and white shoes. He also had a thick head of black medium length hair styled into a mullet.
As he was going through puberty, he got taller with a growth spurt and developed facial hair and acne on his face.
In the present day, Bratt is a tall, slim, and athletically built man with fair skin. He now has a thick and bushy black mustache, and his hair is a bit longer but also has a bald spot. He wears an updated version of his original outfit but added several hidden features into his clothes such as his shoes turning into water skis and his outfit turning into a paraglider. He also has one gold earring and is seen holding his keytar a lot. Bratt is also mostly seen blowing a bubble out of bubble gum which he did frequently on his TV show as well.
Role in the film[]
After his turn to villainy, Balthazar Bratt quickly rose to the top of the Anti Villain League's most wanted criminal list meaning he should be getting a life sentence when captured and fought with them on various occasions, particularly with Felonious Gru, an ex-supervillain, and the AVL's newest member as well as his partner/wife Lucy Wilde. However, they always failed to capture Bratt.
Bratt, along with his robotic sidekick Clive (who was also in the television series), robs an ocean liner transporting the world's largest diamond, the Dumont Diamond, using his rapidly inflating bubblegum to turn the ship airborne. Balthazar then gets into a fight with Gru, and, after disarming each other, begin "dance fighting", although Gru seemingly knocks him out. As Gru prepares to turn the diamond back to the authorities, Bratt gets back up, stating that he was only pretending to be knocked out, and blows Gru away using a sonic keytar, publicly humiliating him in the process. Before Bratt can get away, numerous AVL agents swarm the liner, forcing him to escape. As punishment for failing to capture Bratt, both Gru and Lucy are fired from the AVL by the new, overly harsh and pompous director Valerie Da Vinci.Retaking the Diamond and Plotting his Revenge
After escaping Gru, Bratt poses as an overweight jewel inspector to gain access to and retrieve the Dumont Diamond from a museum in Paris. The next day, Balthazar Bratt's diamond heist makes the first page of the news, infuriating Gru. Later, Bratt trains for "the big day" and watches an episode of his television series in which Evil Bratt attacks a city with a giant robot and uses his expanding bubblegum to float the city into space, with Bratt planning on doing the same thing to Hollywood as revenge for them cancelling his show & avenging it.
To get his old job back, Gru plots to steal the Dumont Diamond back from Bratt with the help of his twin brother Dru (who believes them to be stealing it as an act of villainy, not heroism). Making it to Bratt's bedroom, they narrowly avoid waking him up and alerting him before he wakes up himself and continues working on his giant robot. After Dru accidentally alerts Bratt to their presence by nearly choking on his expanding bubblegum, Gru throws the gum at Bratt, sticking him to the wall while they take the diamond and narrowly escape his fortress in a helicopter piloted by Lucy (who had followed them suspicious of both), and they return to Dru's mansion with the diamond.
Once at the mansion, however, Gru and Dru get into an argument over how the former wants to return to the AVL while the latter wants to continue their family's villainy tradition, ending with both disowning each other and Gru storms out.
Meanwhile, Bratt disguises himself as Lucy (tying up and gagging the real Lucy, and stuffing her in a closet), takes the diamond back and kidnaps Margo, Edith, and Agnes (along with Agnes' new pet one-horned goat Lucky). Gru is about to leave out the door when he finds Lucy in the closet and she frantically tells him that Bratt took the girls. Gru and Lucy then rush to Dru who is still sulking from their argument. But learning that his nieces have been snatched by Bratt, Dru immediately drops his anger at his brother and he, Gru and Lucy board his hovercraft and fly to Hollywood to stop Bratt and rescue the girls. On the way there, they nearly collide with the aircraft that the Minions built (to escape from prison), and the Minions decide to follow them.
At Hollywood, Bratt's giant robotic self-replica emerges from the ocean and begins attacking the city, shooting his expanding gum everywhere as several people fearfully panic and run. Edith demands Bratt to release her and her sisters, and Bratt complies by casually placing the girls (and the goat) on the ledge of a building to give them a perfect view of the destruction he is causing. After shooting enough of the gum, Bratt uses the robot's diamond-powered laser cannon to begin separating Hollywood from the ground to let it drift off.
Gru, Dru, and Lucy arrive at Hollywood to see Bratt's robot attacking the city and Dru realize Bratt's plan due to having watched Evil Bratt. The Minions parachute out of their aircraft and onto the expanding gum and desperately try to pop it, but it is too strong and sturdy. While Lucy rescues the girls, Gru and Dru shoot Bratt's robot with several missiles. Unfortunately, they prove to be ineffective and Bratt has his Bratt-Bots—modified Evil Bratt dolls—bring down Gru and Dru's plane, and the two brothers leap out of the aircraft before it crashes and explodes. Dru uses the suction on his spy suit to land on the robot's chest plate (without Bratt noticing), while Gru lands hard on the ground, knocking him unconscious. Seeing the unconscious Gru, Bratt begins firing his laser towards him, but before the beam can reach Gru, Dru destroys the robot's generator, causing it to collapse & then destroyed.
Whilst trying to search the wreckage for his brother, Gru comes face to face with an enraged Bratt, he safely exits his broken robot & came back out where everything he created is all sabotaged. His robot suit is destroyed, his dolls were exploded by aircraft, Hollywood is saved from going into space, Clive is deceased by injury when the robot crashes & his conspiracy backfired. Bratt can use his keytar to blow him away, Gru proposes a dance fight and Bratt complies, setting the music to Madonna's "Into the Groove". After a brief dance fight, Gru snatches Bratt's keytar and uses it to both blow him away and similarly humiliate him to how Bratt had previously done to him earlier, leaving Bratt floating away in his gum while naked, as AVL helicopters swarm in to arrest him at long last & then jail him forever by finally catching him. With Bratt's defeat & arrest, Gru & Lucy are both finally reinstated back again to the AVL.
Trivia[]
- In the film, several 80s songs can be heard playing whenever Balthazar appears, such as "Bad" by the late Michael Jackson, "Sussudio" by Phil Collins, "Jump" by Van Halen, "Take on Me" by A-ha, "Into the Groove" by Madonna and "Money for Nothing" by Dire Straits.
- Balthazar Bratt's name is likely a reference/shout out to Benjamin Bratt, who voiced El Macho in Despicable Me 2, although it is equally possible that his name is simply a pun on the word brat (meaning a spoiled & obnoxious child).
- Balthazar Bratt is the first main antagonist in the Despicable Me franchise to not have a familial relationship and the second being the Vicious 6 whereas Vector is the son of Mr. Perkins, El Macho is the father of Antonio Perez, Scarlet Overkill is married to Herb Overkill and Maxime Le Mal is with Valentina.
- Bratt's outfit is likely a homage to Prince's looks from the 1980s, particularly with the prominent use of purple and the style of blazer he wears being quite similar to the late singer's style.
- Similar like Gru: he turns into villainy when his program got cancelled while Gru goes into heroism from being a bad guy. While Gru has his minions, Bratt has Clive by his side.
- Bratt is the only character Trey Parker has played that was not written by either himself or Matt Stone.
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