Men In Black : International

When rebooting a languishing and almost dead franchise it's a good idea to come at it from another angle than before, to bring something fresh and exciting to the table. It's common sense to shake things up. Maybe even take a look at your plotlines and characters through a prism of current events and use what's going on in the world today to make an old story relevant to a modern audience.  Men In Black : International does nothing like that. Men In Black : International sucks. Like Men In Black 2 & 3, it soon enough will be forgotten so thoroughly that it mightn't even exist.

An alien encounter as a child in New York embues Milly Wright with a thirst for knowledge of what exists beyond our planet. Her need to know what's out there leads her to the headquarters of the Men In Black. Agent H is a Man in Black working in the London branch. He's an admired and respected agent and when Molly is transferred to London she feels compelled to work with him as he's always in the middle of things. It doesn't take long before trouble finds them.

I thought this was shit. It's a painfully unfunny film, one absolutely bereft of new ideas and one happy to coast by on the charm of it's leads. A pair of leads who have zero chemistry between them by the way despite sharing tonnes of it in their previous collaborations. It's an utterly forgettable film too. So much so that a trip to imdb was required to remember the lead characters names while writing this. It opens with a horribly telegraphed plot point that comes to zilch and it's all predictable as hell. It offers nothing new to stir up the franchise. Nothing. It's baddies are crap. It's idea of edginess is telling us that Piers Morgan is an alien. FFS, we all knew that already. For a film all about migration control there was so much scope here for a commentary on real life migration but do we get anything at all? Nope. Not a sniff.

It's all such a waste. It should be funny. It should be exciting. It's a story about one of America's most mythical urban legends. The Men in black suits, the folk who know there's life beyond the stars. It should be intriguing. It's none of that at all. A film packed full of talent like this should be a worthwhile watch. Chris Hemsworth is easily the most entertaining part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. His Thor was a barrel of laughs and usually stole every scene he appeared in. Here he's content to smile and give people a thumbs up. No, seriously, that's all he does. His gift for comedy doesn't exist in this dojo and his action chops are barely given a run out at all. Tessa Thompson tries gamely but comes up empty when she has nothing to play off. Her introduction into the movie promises something interesting and fails to deliver on that promise totally. Her and Hemsworth had chemistry to burn in Thor : Ragnarok but there's no trace of it here. Liam Neeson as Agent T looks embarrassed and Emma Thompson as Agent O just looks bored. It's simply a paycheque job for both. Even the usually reliable Kumail Nanjiani as the lil Alien pawnee is reduced to spouting painfully lame one liners and plays a part that could have been snipped from the movie in seconds.

It's a continuation of the Men In Black franchise but also a reboot too. There's an artistic nod to Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones but apart from that's there's little connective tissue to the old films apart from Emma Thompson's character who's wasted to an absurd degree. It feels very much like the start of a new franchise and so on top of all it's other problems, it suffers from franchise starter problems too. Storylines and characters only appear to cement themselves a place in further installments. They feel underused and unfinished and when that involves squandering fine actors like Rebecca Ferguson it all feels very frustrating indeed. She plays a character with a past connecting her to Agent H that could have had potential but then she's just gone and you're left wondering why she took the part at all. In fact I'm left wondering why anyone took part in this. It certainly wasn't because of the script..........*cough* $$$$$$$$

This was muck. It doesn't deserve to share a name with the original movie, that 98 minutes of perfection from 22 years ago. It's a dud that will probably be the nail in the coffin for the series.