The summer blockbuster season continues this week with *rolls dice* Men in Black: International – the fourth entry in the MIB series. A series which dates back to 1997 and was previously spearheaded by Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones.

This time around, Smith and Jones are out and Chris Hemsworth and Tessa Thompson are in. Hemsworth has taken on the role of Agent H, while Thompson is new recruit, Agent M.

But with new blood and a new director calling the shots – F. Gary Gray taking over from Barry Sonnenfeld – is it any good, or should I use a neuralyzer to forget this ever happened?

Yeah, it’s time for the neuralyzer I’m afraid.

To date, I’ve watched every MIB movie at the cinema – all within days of each movie’s debut. I’m not some kind of MIB super fan, but I have a lot of time for the original and I think this has kept me interested in this series as a whole – even though it has been a bumpy ride.

The original film is great. Two is bad. Three is pretty decent.

Now I wish I could say this fourth part is on par with the better entries in the series, but I can’t. In fact, I am unable to even say I found Men in Black: International mildly entertaining, because I didn’t.

Advertisements

Men in Black: International is a bore. A snooze fest. A complete waste of time. I was glad when it was over because this two-hour movie outstayed its welcome by around 90 minutes.

The plot is forgettable, characters get introduced for REASONS, and the ending is signposted a mile off. The comedy is also badly handled, with almost all of the jokes falling completely flat.

I watched this movie with my husband. He didn’t mind it, but he said there were clearly issues with the writing. He’s right – the writing is perhaps the biggest problem with this film, but also the direction is bad too.

I’m unsure how any director can take Hemsworth and Thompson, two actors who had great chemistry in Thor: Ragnarok, and turn them into incompatible leads.

What happened?!

Advertisements

Hemsworth works well on his own. The same goes for Thompson. Together they just don’t gel. Oh, the film wanted me to believe they did, but they don’t.

It’s as if the director has all the right elements for an MIB adventure, the right actors, the right ideas etc, but he doesn’t know how to make them fit the MIB mould. The result is an entry that is worse than Men in Black 2.

Men in Black: International isn’t the biggest disappointment of 2019, and it’s certainly no Hellboy, but it also isn’t worth a visit to the cinema. It’s a missed opportunity to breath life into a series which has sadly bumbled along for 22 years without any real sense of direction.

Will this be the final MIB movie? Doubtful, but unless Sony Pictures can think of a way to make Part 5 unmissable, it’s certainly the final one for me.

Read more:

Advertisements