NEW YORK (OSV News) – Though it comes across as somewhat unfocused, the animated comedy “Despicable Me 4” (Universal) retains much of the charm that has characterized the whole series of films to which it belongs. It’s an agreeable piece of fun that’s suitable for all but the very youngest.

This latest chapter in the adventures of Gru (voice of Steve Carell), the would-be supervillain whose heart of gold long ago turned him into a loving dad and a crimefighter, opens with him assisting in the arrest and imprisonment of French criminal Maxime Le Mal (voice of Will Ferrell). Le Mal vows vengeance on Gru’s family and manages to escape in short order.

With Le Mal on the loose, Gru and the clan — Kristen Wiig voices his sensible wife, Lucy — have to go into hiding and assume false identities. But Poppy (voice of Joey King), the daughter of their preppy, country club patronizing new neighbors, the Prescotts (voices of Stephen Colbert and Chloe Fineman), discovers their secret and uses it to blackmail Gru.

While the comic chaos wrought by Gru’s trademark Twinkie-shaped minions continues to evoke laughs, director Chris Renaud’s addition to a franchise he helped to establish goes down too many plot paths at once. Some of the details of the story — Le Mal’s goal is to kidnap infant Gru Jr., for instance — also seem a bit challenging for kids.

Genuinely objectionable ingredients are kept out of the mix. And there’s a morally interesting, though underdeveloped, subplot about the refusal of one of Gru’s adopted daughters to use the pseudonym she’s been given on the grounds that it would constitute lying.

Yet scenes of danger, a touch of potty humor and a minion mooning may give the parents of the littlest moviegoers pause.

The film contains characters in peril, a flash of nonhuman rear nudity and a scatological sight gag. The OSV News classification is A-I — general patronage. The Motion Picture Association rating is PG — parental guidance suggested. Some material may not be suitable for children.

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Mia Goth has reprised her widely beloved role of Maxine Minx in MaXXXine, the third instalment of Ti West‘s X film series, previously comprised of 2022’s X and its prequel Pearl. Modern scream queen Goth is joined by an impressive cast, including Elizabeth Debicki, Moses Sumney, Michelle Monaghan, Halsey, Lily Collins, Giancarlo Esposito, and Kevin Bacon.

If you’re lucky enough to remember memories from your early childhood, you’ll know they tend to be fragmentary, skewed from an outlook incapable of fully grasping the adult world. Czech filmmaker Beata Parkanova captures that feeling beautifully in her film receiving its world premiere at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival. Related entirely through the viewpoint of a six-year-old girl, Tiny Lights emerges as a small gem.

It helps that the little girl, Amalka, is played by adorable child actress Mia Banko, possessing wide, saucer eyes that are endlessly expressive and long red hair of which Heidi would be jealous. In the opening scene, Amalka hears voices emanating from a closed-door room and, naturally curious, attempts to listen. She hears her grandmother angrily say to her mother, “Happiness? Save it for the fairy tales,” but she has no idea of what it means.

So she goes to play with her very submissive cat, apparently named Mr. Cat. But she tests Mr. Cat’s patience by putting him inside a wooden chest, from which her grandfather (Martin Finger) soon rescues him. She returns to the room, and when she opens the door, the adults grow silent. “I’m bored,” Amalka says petulantly, and her grandmother (Veronika Zilkova) tries to assuage her by promising that she’ll take her to the lake that afternoon.

After naughtily picking flowers that we later learn came from a neighbor’s garden, Amalka has soup for lunch, unaware of the tensions surrounding her. Her grandparents live up to their promise by taking her to the lake, where her grandfather teaches her how to dive. They hike in the woods and pick blueberries, but Amalka throws a tantrum when told they have to leave.

And so the film goes, with Amalka trying to amuse herself as the adults seem to be engaged in tense confrontations, especially when her mother (Elizaveta Maximova) shows up with a strange French man and announces that she’s going with him to Prague. Amalka, of course, doesn’t comprehend what’s happening except when it relates to her, as when her father (Marek Geisberg) gently upbraids her for picking the flowers and tells her that she’ll have to apologize to the neighbor. As the day ends, she goes to bed, unaware of the fissure in her parents’ relationship, and her father wearily reads her a bedtime story that she’s heard a thousand times before but clearly still finds fascinating.

Even with its brief running time, Tiny Lights demands a certain degree of patience with its intense focus on banal childhood preoccupations. The filmmaker also indulges in stylistic flourishes — principally quick inserted shots that look like they were captured on 8mm and feature a series of close-up views of objects and facial features ­— that are more distracting than illuminating. The strained attempts at artiness just feel self-conscious.

But for most of the film’s running time, Parkanova maintains tight control over her material, making us fully identify with little Amalka and her preoccupations. The film presents things from her viewpoint, even physically; DP Tomas Juricek often places the camera low down, aligning with her diminutive size. The story takes place over the course of a single day, and its poignancy derives from the fact that we, if not Amalka, are fully aware that her life is going to change, possibly forever.

Or maybe she does realize it, as evidenced by the haunting, lingering final shot, in which we see the silhouette of her body as she peers through the large windows of her bedroom, as if trying to see the world beyond her limited perspective.