Moviegoers love those Minions – or was it the lure of air-conditioning – that made the family comedy “Despicable Me 4” top the Fourth of July weekend with an estimated five-day domestic box-office of $122.6 million at 4,428 theaters – making this the top-grossing animated franchise of all time. 

This time Gru (voiced by Steve Carell) – the reformed supervillain-turned-Anti-Villain League agent – launches more Minion mayhem as he, his wife Lucy (Kristen Wiig) and their adopted daughters (Miranda Cosgrove, Dana Gaier, Madison Skyy Polan) welcome Gru Jr. (Tara Strong), an infant who rejects Gru’s paternal attention.

They face off with a new nemesis, cockroach-obsessed Maxime Le Mal (Will Ferrell). Gru and snooty Maxime first met when they were students at Lycee Pas Bos, a French boarding school for aspiring bad guys. When they attend a reunion at their alma mater, antagonism surfaces as old tensions erupt. 

It seems that – before Maxime and his femme-fatale girlfriend Valentina (Sofia Vergara) escaped from the Anti-Villain League’s maximum-security prison – he recorded a video message vowing to ‘exterminate’ Gru.

So AVI’s concerned boss Silas Ramsbottom (Steve Coogan), following witness-protection protocols, relocates the entire Gru brood to tranquil suburban Mayflower, giving them new identities – which Gru calls “high-stakes pretending.”

Discarding his usual scarf and dark attire, Gru plays a part-time solar power salesman / stay-at-home dad, while Lucy becomes a high-class beautician, working in an elite salon on Main Street.

As part of his mission, Gru needs to befriend his country-club next-door neighbors: Perry (Stephen Colbert), Patsy (Chloe Fineman) and their larcenous teenage daughter Poppy Prescott (Joey King).

Last but not least, Silas enlists the little yellow Minions (vocalizing Pierre Coffin’s gibberish) to train as AVI agents and, during the final credits, one of the Mega Minions mutates into a superhero.

Directed by Chris Renaud & Patrick Delage from a script by Mike White & Ken Daurio, it’s familiar fare, studded with zany visual gags that invariably elicit laughs from the little ones.

On the Granger Gauge of 1 to 10, “Despicable Me 4” is a silly 6, playing in delightfully air-conditioned theaters.

Call me a philistine, but I wouldn’t force watching Yorgos Lanthimos’ dreadful 165-minute “Kinds of Kindness” dirge on my worst enemy!

After intriguing audiences with “The Favorite” (2018) and “Poor Things” (2023), which were – at least – comprehensible, Greek ‘auteur’ Lanthimos reunites with his co-screenwriter Efthimis Filippou to create a trilogy of bizarre, almost incoherent cinematic ‘essays’ exploring themes of dominance / control, faith and love.

The titles of each disturbing segment refer to R.M.F. – the initials by which a perpetually mysterious man (Yorgos Stefanakos) is known.

In “The Death of R.M.F,” placid, obedient Robert (Jesse Plemons) is at the beck-and-call of his demanding, wealthy boss (Willem Dafoe), who not only supports Robert and his wife Sarah (Hong Chau) but also sends them uniquely extravagant sports memorabilia gifts – like a tennis racquet smashed by John McEnroe. But there’s a malevolent undertone that surfaces when Robert rebels in desperation.

In “R.M.F. is Flying,” maritime biologist Liz (Emma Stone) is missing on a research expedition, causing her cop husband Daniel (Plemons) to sink into depression. When his partner Neil (Mamoudou Athie) and wife Martha (Margaret Qualley) invite him to dinner, distraught Daniel begs them to watch a kinky, sexually explicit video. Then things go from bad to worse when ‘Liz’ comes back.

Finally, in “R.F.M. Eats a Sandwich,” Emily (Stone) joins a creepy, purity-obsessed sex cult led by Omi (Dafoe) and Aka (Chau). She’s partnered with Andrew (Plemons) on a quest to find/identify a potential spiritual leader with the power to reanimate the dead. It’s all quite surreal.

Kinder critics have called Lanthimos ‘enigmatic’; to me, he’s simply deranged – except to those devoted film buffs who admire his stylistic tics, robotic dialogue, dark humor and deadpan acting direction, previously demonstrated in “The Killing of a Sacred Deer” in which a confrontational character (Barry Keoghan) convinces a doctor (Colin Farrell) to kill one of his family members..

On the Granger Gauge, “Kinds of Kindness” is a trebly tediously twisted 2, playing in theaters. I urge you not to waste your time or money!