- “What happened, Gru? All your dreams of becoming a famous villain, they go poof-poof, huh?”
- ―Maxime Le Mal making fun of Gru
Maxime Le Mal is the main antagonist of Universal•Illumination's 2024 animated feature film Despicable Me 4. He is a cockroach-themed supervillain who becomes the fourth sworn adversary and the arch-nemesis of Felonious Gru. His conflict with Gru originates due to the fact that Maxime was humiliated by Gru during their time at school as well as when he was arrested during a sting operation, thereby seeking revenge on him and his family after he gets exposed for his crimes before getting arrested by the AVL. He is also the boyfriend of Valentina.
Background[]
There isn't much about Maxime's upbringing shown in the film. However, it is known that he was somehow found inside the Lycee Pas Bon School of Villainy, became Principal Übelschlecht's favorite student, entered into a relationship with the most popular girl in the school, Valentina. It is unknown how he and Felonious Gru met each other in Lycee Pas Bon and became enemies, leading to a long-standing rivalry. During a school dance, Gru mentioned that Maxime humiliated him by pulling down his pants in front of all the students. In retaliation, Gru stole Maxime's song, "Karma Chameleon," at the ninth-grade talent show, leaving Maxime angry and fueling his hatred of Gru. This led them to become archenemies and rivals ever since.
Personality[]
Maxime is shown to be very arrogant, self-centered, unrelenting, and vengeful for a diabolical mastermind. He acts like bully and rival to Gru, humiliating him for his failure and his retirement Being a supervillain, he makes everyone laugh at Gru; he thinks him is laughingstock, a joke which Gru dislike for his humiliation and his failure He will do whatever it takes to get his revenge on Gru, all because the latter stole Maxime's song for a talent show at ninth grade, showing that Maxime held a grudge towards Gru. Though he may prove to be smart and conniving, Maxime is nothing but stubborn and cruel for a vindictive and petty egomaniac himself. Despite Maxime's worst traits, he still genuinely loves his girlfriend, Valentina. He is never mean to her in any way as he did agree to buy her a slushie and he was visibly upset when she got defeated, showing that he’s not completely heartless. He is even shown to care for his cockroach soldiers by treating them as individuals. He also refers to them by their names, and praises them for their hard work.
Physical appearances[]
Maxime is a giant mutant cockroach monster. He has brown eyes, slicked dark brown hair, a pointy chin, and a long nose. He wears a yellow bow tie, a seafoam green shirt under a dark green coat with a golden cockroach motif, a white collar with black spots, and white gloves, alongside brown pants that also have the cockroach motif and white shoes.
At the end of the movie, in his full human body, he appears to be thin and tall.
Powers and abilities[]
Maxime is shown to be an intelligent person. He was a successful villain and manage to mutate himself onto a cockroach/man hybrid. His middle cockroach legs are shown to be very sharp that can very easily cleave through thick steel beams and scar Gru. He also is shown to have super strength as he easily flew while fighting Gru and broke several stone walls able to fight off alone multiple opponents like AVL agents nothing but a bare hands, Although a notable weakness is that his human parts, most notably his human hands and head seems to be more vulnerable, as Gru Jr. manage to bit his finger and Gru manage to place a well place punch on him.
Role in the film[]
Now an adult, Maxime attended a class reunion of Lycee Pas Bon with Valentina and dozens of other villains. When a now-adult Gru arrives at the school to secretly arrest Maxime, Maxime starts mocking him and they argue, asking about "disappearance" and how he has gone down due to his dad's bod and baldness, as well as him renouncing villainy, humiliating him in front of everyone, and mentioning Gru didn't steal Moon, leaving everyone laughing at Gru's humiliating. Soon after, the award ceremony happens, and Principal Übelschlecht happily gives the ex-student award to Maxime. When he comes onstage, he talks about how he has mutated and experimented on the cockroach, culminating in the reveal of his mutation into a cockroach-human hybrid, with his body adapting to the appearance and strength of the animal. He also declares himself “unstoppable.” Gru then surprises Maxime by saying that he is an AVL agent before they both fight. Several AVL agents arrive and help Gru in taking down Maxime. They succeed, and Gru takes the award, but then Maxime briefly breaks free to attack Gru one last time, trying to slice him, but the AVL agents recapture him instantly, while Maxime swears revenge on Gru. It turns out he left a small scar on Gru’s face and also sliced the award in half, much to Gru's shock.
Maxime sends a message from his cell, breaking out of his binds as he threatens that he will not go easy on Gru the next time they meet. He is eventually broken out of his prison by Valentina and his cockroach army as they return to their underground lair. There, he reveals his newest invention, a blaster that can also turn people into human cockroach hybrids, and announces his plans to target Gru's son, Gru Jr., as he hunts down his family. He then builds a cockroach airship, which he & Valentina use to emerge to the surface as they go off to start their hunt. On their way, it is revealed why he has such a grudge against Gru: he stole his supposed "Karma Chameleon" performance during their 9th-grade talent show. After he mopes, he is informed by Valentina that they have run out of fuel. To refill it, they stop by a mundane gas station. Maxime swipes his card to be able to fill his ship but fails to do it in a rapid fashion, which he has been attempting to do. He then seeks help from an attendant, who becomes very uncordial with him. In extreme frustration, Maxime uses his blaster to turn him into a human cockroach hybrid just like him and orders him afterwards to give him a slushy Valentina wanted, which he does.
Later on, Übelschlecht contacts Maxime about Gru's location & has Valentina take them to Mayflower, where Gru is hiding. Before they could even break in & take Gru Jr., he just so managed to be outside. They use the opportunity to take him & gloat against Gru as his efforts to catch up to their fleeing ship become futile. Gru & his next-door neighbor, Poppy Prescott, manage to get to them through a flying carriage. Gru gets on the ship to get his son back, but by the time they stop at a construction site, Maxime has turned Gru Jr. against him, making him a human-cockroach hybrid. Maxime relishes as he & Gru Jr. take on the latter's father, but he eventually turns on the villain, with father & son now both fighting against him. Gru manages to knock him off the building, sending him falling. But just when it was almost over, the Mega Minions arrived late to further squash him after the damage he had taken, culminating in Mega Jerry landing on him.
Once he is arrested again (alongside Valentina and Principal Übelschlecht), Gru visits him (now restored his human flesh body), instigating a friendly argument as Gru admits that he did steal his song back at the talent show only because Maxime pulled a prank on him for pulling Gru's pants humiliating students and the whole talent show was payback for Maxime’s prank, but Maxime still hates him for that. For them to make amends, they put on a show, and sing "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" with the rest of the other prisoners from the past in the AVL's prison.
Trivia[]
- "Le Mal" is French and roughly translates to "bad"/"bad one".
- He and Balthazar Bratt are the only Despicable Me villains to already know about Gru's existence, as all of the other villains usually end up meeting him for the first time. He is also the only one in the main franchise to not interact with Margo, Agnes and Edith.
- Will Ferrell provided Maxime with an over-the-top French accent.
- Maxime is the first villain in the Despicable Me franchise to make amends with Gru. However, the film's ending seemingly shows that all the previous villains have put aside their grudges towards Gru and the Minions offscreen.
- "Le Mal" is French and roughly translates to "The Bad, "The Evil" or "Bad One."
- He, El Macho, and Balthazar Bratt are the only three Despicable Me villains to already know about Gru's existence, as all of the other villains usually end up meeting him for the first time. He is also the only one in the franchise to not interact with Margo, Agnes, and Edith.
- Maxime Le Mal is fully human at the end of the film, suggesting that Dr. Nefario was able to revert him back to normal the same way he reverted Gru Jr.
- He is the second Despicable Me villain to be a genetically-altered human, with the first being El Macho following his ingestion of the PX-41 serum.
- He is the second main villain to be in a romantic relationship, the first being Scarlet Overkill.
- He is the first former antagonist by Illumination. In fact, he is more of an anti-hero than a villain.
- He could possibly be considered the darkest and most personal villain in the whole series, seeing that he was the reason why the Gru family was forced to move away to not be killed. He also kidnapped Gru Jr, and brainwashed him to join his side and spite Gru for a minor transgression. On top of that, he feels no remorse for any of this, despite his reconciliation with Gru. However, Gru doesn’t have any regrets about his actions as well.
- He is the only main Despicable Me antagonist to not have his full name revealed.
- Like many of the series' other villains, Maxime is a dark reflection of Gru. Both were bright students at Lycee Pas Bon, with plans to become great supervillains. However, in the first film, Gru realized that being a villain would never bring him true happiness. As for Maxime, he never realized it. If Gru hadn't gone through his character arc, he would've become an obsessed and petty supervillain like Maxime.
- Will Ferrell's casting as Maxime is interesting for two reasons:
- Ferrell and Steve Carell have worked together multiple times before, but almost always as friends or associates, not usually as enemies.
- On the same year that Despicable Me originally released, Ferrell starred as Megamind, a supervillain who was also redeemed in the movie of the same name. Thus, the two films competed against each other in the box office.
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