Vincent (Over the Hedge)

"All right, RJ. I'm goin' back to sleep. When that moon is full, I'm wakin' up. And all my stuff had better be right back where it was!"

- Vincent

Vincent is the main antagonist of Over the Hedge. He is RJ's arch-nemesis and former best friend.

In the film, after losing all his food to a truck, Vincent gets mad at RJ and ends his friendship with him. However, Vincent decides to let RJ slide and not eat him after all and gives him a week to retrieve his food and give it back to him or else he will hunt down RJ and kill him. When the deadline arrives, RJ finally returns with the food and Vincent is impressed by this, encouraging the raccoon to become selfish like him. Instead, RJ rightfully decides to help his friends and give them Vincent's food to help them survive, angering the bear and prompting him to attempt to murder RJ and his best friends. In the end, Vincent is defeated when he falls into Gladys' backyard, gets stung by the Depelter Turbo alongside Gladys and Dwayne (which causes him to lose his fur), and is later sent to the Rocky Mountains by Animal Control.

Beginnings
It is unknown how RJ and Vincent became friends.

Over the Hedge
At the beginning of the film, Vincent is RJ's only friend and often hangs out with him.

One night, RJ is on the hunt for food, but he is unable to reach snacks in the vending machine. He soon notices Vincent's cave from afar and quietly sneaks into his cave. RJ then tries to steal all of his food, which are based upon commercials. He nearly succeeds, only to accidentally wake Vincent up when opening the can of Spuddies. Noticing RJ, a confused Vincent asks the raccoon what he is doing in his cave and says that since the moon isn't full, RJ woke him up a week early. Then Vincent notices the wagon filled with his food and threatens to kill RJ for trying to steal his stuff. RJ nonchalantly and slowly tries to make an escape, but accidentally drops the wagon of food onto the street, startling the two of them. The wagon ends up stopping in the middle of the road and the two friends are relieved and laugh at how they thought it was going to get ruined. Right on cue, a truck drives by and crushes the wagon of food. Shocked and angered, Vincent pursues RJ in an attempt to kill him and before he can get away, Vincent jumps in front of RJ, grabs him by the head, and opens his jaws to swallow him. Terrified out of his wits, RJ tells Vincent to wait and that he can get all of his food back, saying that Vincent would have to do it himself if he ate him. Thinking twice, Vincent decides to let RJ slide and lists down his possessions that RJ claims he can get, including the red wagon, the blue cooler, and Spuddies (which Vincent claims that "enough isn't enough" with). RJ exclaims that a week is too long, but accepts this when Vincent threateningly squeezes his head. Then Vincent tells RJ that when he wakes up from hibernation in a week when the moon is full, his stuff had better be back where it was or he will hunt down and kill RJ. Grateful, the raccoon accepts this and Vincent lets him go and returns to his cave to sleep.

One night, RJ makes his own bed in a tree, using a newspaper as his blanket. As he is snoring away, the wind blows his blanket away and Vincent's paw suddenly swipes him out of his tree. The bear tells RJ that time is now up and then opens his jaws to swallow the panicking raccoon whole. However, RJ wakes up and is relieved to find out that it was just a nightmare. Soon, he looks up to the night sky and sees the stars form Vincent in his imagination, who tells RJ he will see him in the morning. He then takes the moon, eats it, and disappears.

For the rest of the film, Vincent isn't seen again until near the climax, where RJ brings the wagon of restored food back to the black bear, who is impressed and tells RJ that if he keeps up the good work, one day, he'll be just like him. However, RJ has a change of heart and rightfully decides to help his best friends out with the food instead of giving it all away to Vincent. Soon, an enraged and betrayed Vincent gives chase and makes one final attempt to kill RJ and his friends as well. After knocking Dwayne out, an enraged Vincent pursues RJ on the van and it is driven into big helium balloons. After one of the porcupines stick their quills into Vincent's nose and causes him pain, he is dragged off and up into the air by the balloons and he angrily shouts RJ's name in defeat.

Vincent isn't seen again until RJ and the other animals go back over the hedge and into the Outdoor Woods, and the animals react in horror after a terrified Hammy points up and warns them of Vincent's return by calling him a "scary clown". After using the porcupine quill to pop the balloons, Vincent roars loudly in anger and goes after the animals, and he digs through the hedge while they hide, trying to kill them. Gladys and Dwayne chop through the other side, with Dwayne using his cattle prod and Gladys using her weed hacker to kill the animals as well. Eventually, RJ fits Verne's shell on and Vincent pounces. Hammy drinks some energy drink that makes everything freeze for a while after Hammy makes time stop. He sets the ultimate animal trap, the Depelter Turbo, and the freezing starts to fade away. RJ is fished out of Vincent's mouth with a fishing rod by a naked Verne and RJ teasingly waves at Vincent as he is flung into the red lights in Gladys' backyard, knocking Gladys and Dwayne in as well. It eventually goes off and, after a warning from Dwayne, the machine burns all three of them, but they are still alive. By now, Vincent has lost completely all of his fur from being stung by the Depelter Turbo.

Afterwards, a now-drugged Vincent is taken away by Animal Control with a mask on him and is sent back to the Rocky Mountains. It can be assumed that he had sworn revenge on RJ ever since.

Over the Hedge: The Video Game
After Vincent is caught by the Depelter Turbo, he doesn't get taken away by Animal Control, but is still left without his fur.

Later, RJ plans to go to his cave to steal his satellite dish and brings the whole gang with him. He is pretty sure Vincent isn't there and assures the gang so; however, as he goes to steal the satellite dish, Vincent (whose fur has now apparently grown back) appears from behind his food stack with a brainwash-helmet and tries to eat the "annoying raccoon". After a fierce battle, RJ and the gang are able to knock off Vincent's helmet. Vincent regains consciousness and wonders what RJ is doing there. Verne convinces Vincent to help them on their missions so he can take revenge on Dwayne (who was recently fired by Gladys after he had failed to kill the animals) and redeem himself. Vincent accepts this and he joins RJ and the gang.

Afterwards, Vincent is seen in the Outdoor Woods watching movies with the porcupines. Later, when the animals return to the woods with Gladys' PDA, Vincent is holding off the brainwashed animals in defense of the others.

At the end of the game, Vincent is seen enjoying the victory party with everyone else, having finally come at peace with them.

Bee Movie
In Bee Movie, Vincent makes a non-speaking cameo appearance in court.

Personality
Vincent is a mean, short-tempered, greedy, cruel, and nasty bear who likes to sleep, and he believes that selfishness will take him far, and he even tells RJ that he's gonna be like him some day; however, this proves to be wrong as RJ instead uses the wagon of food to help his friends, thus rightfully betraying Vincent and making himself a better person.

Trivia

 * Vincent is constantly thought to be the secondary and tertiary antagonist of the film.
 * In the film, Vincent was taken away by animal control and remained the animals' enemy. However, in the video game adaption of the film, Vincent stayed in the Outdoor Woods and redeemed himself, thus becoming the animals' new friend and a new family member.
 * Vincent made a non-speaking cameo appearance in Bee Movie when he was in the courtroom.
 * His praise towards RJ near to the film's climax wherein he compliments him on his deceitfulness to get what he desires, methods he frequently employed himself, was added into the film by the directors to justify Vincent's status as a villain since, for all his viciousness, he wasn't an especially villainous figure, only trying to survive as he had worked personally to acquire his necessitates and was perfectly reasonable to negotiate a settlement with RJ after he both greedily and unnecessarily tried to take and accidentally caused the destruction of what was rightfully the bear's. To avoid having portrayed Vincent as too sympathetic to audiences, it was added that he manipulated, betrayed, and even murdered his friends to fulfill his needs and takes a remorseless pride in his cruelty.
 * Vincent is the complete opposite of RJ: RJ is a self-centered con-artist, but he really cares for his friends and gets a chance to redeem himself. However, Vincent never redeemed himself and only wanted to get his food back, even if it meant killing RJ and his best friends, and he ended up getting captured later on and sent to the Rocky Mountains.