Men in Black: International (2019) Review

"You really think a black suit is going to solve all your problems?"
-Agent O



After seeing an alien and the Men in Black without having her memories erased as a kid, Molly Wright (Tessa Thompson) has becomes obsessed with joining the organization.  After infiltrating the New York headquarters, she is given the chance.  Molly becomes Agent M and is sent to London on a mission.  She quickly becomes embroiled in a intergalactic conspiracy and can't trust anyone because there is a mole in MiB.


What Works:

I liked that this movie was a bit of a whodunit.  We get three agents, H (Chris Hemsworth), High T (Liam Neeson), and C (Rafe Spall) and we know from early on that one of them is a mole, but I genuinely didn't know who it was going to be.  It's one of the only elements in this movie that works.

Agent H has a couple of romantic entanglements with alien creatures which I think is an interesting character trait.  I wish the major one, Riza (Rebecca Ferguson), looked a bit more alien, but it's a mildly interesting facet to the character.

Finally, I fully expected to hate Kumali Nanjiani's character, Pawney, who is the comic relief.  While not all of his jokes worked, he did have a few funny moments and they didn't overuse him.


What Sucks:

Strange as it seems, the biggest problem with MiB: International is how boring it is.  I couldn't get invested in this story to save my life.  Almost nothing interesting happens in the entire movie and I really just wanted it to end.  This story isn't engaging in the slightest.

The characters aren't interesting either.  Thompson and Hemsworth are trying, but their characters have hardly any depth.  There is no way to become emotionally attached to either of them and their dynamic isn't anywhere close to being as good as J and K from the original trilogy.

The villain is supremely uninteresting.  It's just a big alien mass trying to destroy the Earth.  The other three films in this series had villains with personality, for better or for worse.  This one comes nowhere close to being the Bug.

Finally, I hate that we see virtually none of M's training.  This would be the perfect opportunity to get to know her better.  Instead we skip straight to seeing her test results.  Watching J pass his recruitment tests is one of the best parts of the original film and to skip right over that in this film is disappointing.


Verdict:

While Men in Black: International isn't as offensively bad as Men in Black II, it's still really bad.  It's boring with a dull story, uninteresting characters, and a terrible villain.  I did like the whodunit aspect along with a handful of comedic moments, but this movie isn't worth your time no matter which galaxy you're from.

 3/10: Really Bad    

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