Men in Black International

Ten Second Review: A hit and miss reboot might not be the best foundation for a new series of films, but there were some moments where a good film peaked through.

I remember watching the first Men in Black and enjoying it, but it was the second one that my sister and I fell in love with. We had a VHS of it and we absolutely rinsed it. It was the Fresh Prince fighting aliens; how could we not love it? I suppose this new film in the franchise is backed by producers with a similar thought: its Thor fighting aliens, why would people not like that? Turns out there might be more to making a popular film than that.

Starting at two separate points in the past the film opens on Agent H (Chris Hemsworth) and High T (Liam Neeson) fighting a dangerous alien threat on the top of the Eiffel Tower. We also see a young Agent M (Tessa Thompson) discovering the Men in black and making it her life’s mission to find and join them. Cut to the present and M is close to her dream. When she discovers their location, she will get one chance to prove that she has what it takes to be a (wo)man in black. She's Just in time as it seems H and T didn’t quite finish off the alien in Paris.

I’m gonna start by saying that Thompson and Hemsworth have great chemistry and it feels like they have a lot of fun working together. Even at the film’s weaker points, their friendship shines through to make it a fairly easy film to watch. Equally, Kumail Nanjiani, playing a new sidekick named Pawny, also fits in to this dynamic quite well. 

One of my biggest problems with the film is that I’m not sure what audience they were going for. I’m not a great believer in rigid genres and I don’t believe that kids and adults should only watch kids and adults films respectively.  I hate to say it but, the original films were great at toeing this line between kids humor and adult jokes. It was tongue in cheek references or background dialogue, it wasn’t taking about pimping out your co-worker or alien fetishes.

Equally, if you were going for an adult film then it would have been good to have something a little more storied. Aliens coming to earth in the Men in Black universe could have some really interesting and timely plot lines. Why not hit us with the immigration story line that would so easily fit in to that world that’s been ready built for it? Maybe write a villain that challenges us in some way rather than a villain we never see, don’t care about and that essentially results in another action film finale where a blue beam is gonna destroy the world. 

There is lots to say about this film, some good and a fair amount bad. It is, for the most part, enjoyable, but it’s not very good and follows on from a much loved series that really casts it shadow. I’d like to talk about how Hemsworth is a better actor than playing the pretty and dumb Thor clone in yet another film. I’d like to ask why they didn’t want to do some sort of call back to the previous leads. I’m curious about how they ended up with such a bland story with such a great universe to play with and a great cast to boot.

I wouldn’t say that Men in Black International isn't worth your time, but it’s certainly not worth valuable time. I don’t think I could ask a person to travel very far to see it and I couldn’t ask them to pay very much either. If it comes out on Netflix and you enjoyed the originals then maybe it makes a good enough watch for a rainy afternoon this autumn, but it doesn’t gain enough from the big screen to warrant a visit to the cinema.