MIB: International

“You really think a black suit is going to solve all your problems?”

Agent O

I enjoy the first Men in Black film quite a bit, it’s very corny, a lot of fun, super 90’s, and a whole lot of Will Smith just being Will Smith (His explanation as to why “little Tiffany had to die” cracks me up every time). The second one I don’t remember liking but I haven’t seen it in years, and the third one I thought was enjoyable with all the time travel elements and trying to break the mold that was set in place by its predecessors. We now enter the fourth installment in the franchise with Men in Black: International. Introducing us to the London branch of the secret agency, we follow the Thor: Ragnarok duo (Chris Hemsworth and Tessa Thompson) as they uncover a mysterious plot in unfolding Europe.

I went into this movie expecting the fun that Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle brought and we get some of that, but not nearly as much as I was hoping for. I really enjoyed the beginning with Molly (Tessa Thompson) tracking down the MIB, I thought that was an interesting concept exploring the consequences of forgetting to neuralize a civilian after encountering an alien. Hemsworth and Thompson work well together, we get a few laughs from them, but the parts that really got me laughing came from Pawny, played by Kumail Nanjiani. We also get to meet several different aliens, all with unique and fun aspects to them, the VFX weren’t the greatest in the galaxy but they weren’t bad either (think a step up from the VFX in Valerian: City of a Thousand Planets).

Unfortunately this movie wasn’t exactly memorable to me (maybe they neuralized all of us at the end or something), it had nothing iconic to it, and just seemed very average. It’s a fairly predictable movie as well, with the first teaser trailer I was able to figure out most of the plot and I was hoping that I had been purposely misguided but that didn’t seem to be the case at all as it unfolded exactly as I thought it would. There’s also a plot device that’s set up early on in the film that I thought was going to have significance, but re-appears again only to quickly get our characters out of a situation that I think could’ve been done way differently, it felt like a quick cop-out and it was very disappointing. Other than those things, not really too much negative to say about the movie, I just wish it had stood out more, I was really excited for it, and maybe that was my mistake. Maybe expecting another Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle was wrong, because that was almost like lightning in a bottle and it shouldn’t have worked but it somehow did, and it might’ve been unfair to expect that to happen again. I also went into Jumanji with little to no expectations, and went into this one with pretty decent ones.

MIB: International gets a 6/10 from me, it was fun, could’ve been better, but it wasn’t bad. I think it would’ve earned more points from me if they had misdirected me with the trailers and hit me with a good twist, but that unfortunately wasn’t the case. Did you see the MIB in action? What were your thoughts about the movie?