Men in Black: International (2019)

[aabattery]

[Ezen Baklattan]

Meh-n in Black.

 

C-

[YLF]

I was really rooting for this movie. I like the two leads and the director, but unfortunately the script is utter crap. There should have been good jokes more frequently in the movie. The writing was so awful I feel bad for the cast. They really had nothing to work with. I feel like kumail wrote his lines, because they were the only funny bits in the entire movie and he isn’t in the movie until around an hour after the movie starts. 

 

C-

Edited June 15, 2019 by YLF

[filmlover]

A limp attempt at reviving the Men in Black franchise that ends up worse than any of the Will Smith/Tommy Lee Jones movies (of which only the first could be considered at all a classic to begin with). It goes through all the predictable and familiar beats with zero attempt at crafting an interesting story, the jokes land with a thud, and even the action feels very perfunctory. Tessa Thompson does the most she can with such a lame script but Chris Hemsworth mostly coasts, and they don't have even a fraction of the chemistry they did in Thor: Ragnarok (while Liam Neeson sleepwalks through a role that takes a surprise turn that can be seen coming from miles away). Some nifty alien designs and effects but that's it. Hopefully they let this IP die for good. D+

[Kravetz]

my favorite part of the original movie was the celebrity quips and Enquirer jokes. Michael Jackson was an alien? Who could they pick for this film? they didn't mock anyone current. 

 

I thought that Chris kept his overweight intoxicated character from another film into this one. It was mostly bland and unmemorable. tommy Lee Jones was by the book and spot on. The characters in the original were much crisper. 

 

Every time I see Liam Neeson on the screen it looks like he was put there with cgi. it was distracting, but the effects were for the most part fine for the film. 

 

the previews suggested that this hive would copy all of the MIB and take over from within. I was disappointed with that absence. the accounting agent with suspicions was not enough to make this feel complete. I am surprisingly at a loss for words, but I just did not like this film. I am at least glad the reviews above tend to agree with me.  

[Webslinger]

Men in Black: International is the latest casualty of a frustratingly common flaw in current blockbuster filmmaking: the studio couldn’t decide which movie to make, so they just tried to cram several of those ideas into one. Within the two leads, two distinct films emerge: a self-aware romp that follows Tessa Thompson’s character as she joins a franchise organization she has adored since her youth, and a more traditional international reboot with Chris Hemsworth somehow trying to replicate Tommy Lee Jones’s experienced mentor and Will Smith’s cocksure neophyte at the same time. Unfortunately, the narrative leans much more on the latter thread, which makes for a mostly dull experience. Some jokes work and Thompson and Hemsworth occasionally show flashes of the rapport they shared in Thor: Ragnarok, but it feels like the film is just trying to get from point-to-point as efficiently as possible throughout most of the running time. Moreover, it’s missing the senses of discovery and wonder that made up for the 1997 original’s brief running time and lack of action; the CGI alien designs just don’t land nearly as well as Rick Baker’s makeup-laden creations from the previous installments, and even scenes that should lean heavily on Thompson’s character’s reactions to firsthand experiences of what she previously only imagined treat these situations in such a matter-of-fact manner that it’s hard to connect with anything that’s happening onscreen. Thompson tries her best and occasionally has some fun – and her first few scenes at MIB headquarters have a level of playfulness and self-awareness that most of the rest of the film lacks. Hemsworth is a disappointment as the co-lead; he’s been effective in broad comedy before and he nailed a sillier take on Thor in Ragnarok and Avengers: Endgame, but those chops aren’t nearly as sharp here. Together, they share a surprisingly weak bond considering that they’ve worked well with one another elsewhere. Other talents in the cast are either criminally underused (Emma Thompson), wasted in stock roles (Liam Neeson), or utilized so blandly that it takes a glance at the IMDB page to even know they were in the movie (Rebecca Ferguson and Rafe Spall). I’ll confess to approaching this film with a negative bias after reading an article detailing how the final product veered dramatically from the original script and director F. Gary Gray didn’t get to make the film he wanted, and those qualities are all too apparent in the film’s workmanlike nature and its quick course-corrections to rote formula just about every time the plot appears to be headed somewhere intriguing. I was really hoping that International could reboot its franchise in style, but it’s so muddled and unspectacular that it doesn’t really land as intended.

 

C

 

Stray Thoughts:

- I saw the Liam Neeson twist coming from the trailer. I mean, come on: he talks about how the villains take the form of people they kill and says that our heroes can trust no one. I know Neeson's renaissance as a box office draw has come and gone, but when you have a big name delivering a line like that in the trailer, it's either a plain giveaway or a deliberate misdirect; the fact that the film itself doesn't afford Neeson much screen time and does not depict him as a red herring makes this "twist" incredibly obvious a long way out from its revelation.

 

- I'd love to take a trip to the alternate reality in which this film was actually a crossover with the Lord/Miller Jump Street flicks, as originally planned.

 

- I'd also settle for seeing a totally different version of this film in which Janelle Monae plays Tessa Thompson's partner. We already know that they have mad chemistry in real life, and the Thompson-to-Thompson comment about how O looks damn good in the suit suggests that M would definitely be open to it.

[Jay Beezy]

On 6/15/2019 at 9:40 PM, filmlover said:

A limp attempt at reviving the Men in Black franchise that ends up worse than any of the Will Smith/Tommy Lee Jones movies (of which only the first could be considered at all a classic to begin with). It goes through all the predictable and familiar beats with zero attempt at crafting an interesting story, the jokes land with a thud, and even the action feels very perfunctory. Tessa Thompson does the most she can with such a lame script but Chris Hemsworth mostly coasts, and they don't have even a fraction of the chemistry they did in Thor: Ragnarok (while Liam Neeson sleepwalks through a role that takes a surprise turn that can be seen coming from miles away). Some nifty alien designs and effects but that's it. Hopefully they let this IP die for good. D+

I haven't seen it and don't plan to, but I reckon something good could have come out of it had the producer not gone maverick during production. So I don't think it's the IP's fault.

Edited June 28, 2019 by Jay Beezy

[clockwork]

This movie is just alright. As someone who enjoyed MIB 3 I was cautiously optimistic about this movie, but the trailers did little to sell me on it. The MIB movies were never all that serious, but this one feels the most lax out of them all. I liked the idea of Tessa Thompson character but the payoff isn't all that great. Chris Hemsworth is a little too jokey for my tastes but there are occasional amusing moments from him. Overall I felt like this movie would have worked better as a limited series run on a streaming service(since everybody is getting one these days). There was an MIB cartoon series in the late 90's which I quite enjoyed, maybe someday they'll make a continuation for that. This franchise would be better served on the small screen, where they could flesh out some ideas more.

C

Edited July 1, 2019 by clockwork

[IndustriousAngel]

7/10, B+

 

reminded me a bit of the Hobbit films ... too much budget and CGI, and an overly complicated plot - but watchable for the performance of the main actor (or in this case, actress). Tessa Thompson really manages to keep this mess from imploding. I wish they could have given Chris Hemsworth a better character, the original MiB movies were buddy stories, here he's more like a sidekick.