Neeson and Hemsworth effectively replace Jones and Smith, and, this time around, Tessa Thompson is added to the mix to challenge the gender stereotype of the black-clad “men”; with Dark Phoenix, the X-Men just went through a similarly insincere and perfunctory bout of self-questioning on this issue. In a similarly earnest spirit, this MiB tackles the idea of aliens as migrants who are not necessarily to be reviled, although this notion goes nowhere and the film can find no way to handle it as anything other than a tricky complicating factor. Thompson herself, usually a charismatic performer who was stylish and amusing last year in Boots Riley’s satire Sorry to Bother You, now has the life squeezed out of her by this wearying film.

The idea is that Agents High T [Neeson] and H [Hemsworth] face down an attack from the evil Hive at the Eiffel Tower, and their own heroism and its mysterious aftermath is presented in parallel with the backstory of Agent M [Thompson]. As a smart little kid 20 years ago, given to reading Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time in her bedroom, she witnessed her mum and dad get attacked by a strange little alien, and then saw the Men in Black show up, deal with the creature and then wipe her parents’ memories with their weird “neuralyzer” wand.

She grows up obsessed with aliens and this hidden agency and finally gets her chance to join. But M must first impress the MiB chief, Agent O [Emma Thompson]. She gets inducted into the organisation in a sub-Kingsman way and then she has to deal with the arrogant but somehow lovable partner, Agent H. Rafe Spall does his best with a supporting role as the nerdy agent, sparring with alpha male Hemsworth.

The story trudges through an uninteresting series of permutations and CGI detonations. The “International” of the title means we travel from New York to London and Marrakesh, although our trio’s appearance in each location could as well have been achieved via a green screen. All the sprightliness that Hemsworth showed in the Avengers movies and in the Ghostbusters remake is nowhere to be found: both script and direction mean that the spark isn’t there, and Thompson has no real chance to shine.

It’s time to wave the neuralyzer in the face of every executive involved and murmur softly: forget about this franchise.

Cast: Chris Hemsworth, Tessa Thompson, Rebecca Ferguson, Kumail Nanjiani, Rafe Spall, Laurent Bourgeois, Larry Bourgeois, Emma Thompson, Liam Neeson

The Men in Black have always protected the Earth from the scum of the universe. In this new adventure, they tackle their biggest, most global threat to date: a mole in the Men in Black organization.

The good thing I can say about MIB International is that, at times, it features humorous and clever gags. The designs of the intergalactic creatures are impressive and the VFX are well integrated with the background, giving the MIB world some authenticity.

From a character standpoint, the film does a decent job establishing the new agent M [Molly], a woman whose run-in with an alien and the MIB as a kid makes her determined to become an agent no matter what it takes. As a means of introducing a new wave of audiences to the franchise, the amazement and wonder of becoming an MIB agent is seen through Molly’s POV and it’s moderately entertaining. Through M’s eyes, you witness some of the best and coolest aspects of being an MIB agent as the film features some areas of creativity, which often works when Molly is learning the ropes.

Here come the Men in Black, galaxy defenders. Here come the Men in Black, much duller than you remember! Just for the record, it should be apparent that if a Men in Black movie doesn’t feature a song to back it up, then it's most likely going to suck. That said… Men in Black International sucks.

As of now there have been four MIB films and you know what the first three entries have in common [aside from Will Smith, Tommy Lee Jones, and Barry Sonnefield]? Fun. While they all haven’t been winners synopsis-wise, there was always an abundant amount of fun with each entry and a good amount of world building to bring this secret organization to life. The comedy was the backbone of the movies, but the chemistry between Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones was the primary force that fueled all of them.

Now, what do you get when you take out all the ingredients of a fun sci-fi buddy comedy? A forgettable installment that proves why the originals were so special. Forgive me if I’m wrong, but last I checked, isn’t Men in Black supposed to be a sci-fi comedy? This has the sci-fi, but leaves out all of the comedy.

Men in Black International is proof that actors are great together when they have a good script attached, but when you give them shit material, you can’t solely rely on their performances to carry the movie. The reason we loved Thompson and Hemsworth together in Thor Ragnarok was primarily due to the writing, courtesy of three screenwriters who know the ins and outs of the characters Thor and Valkyrie. You also had the zany direction of Taika Waititi bolstering their performances as well. Here, you get neither the writing nor the direction to compensate for it.

1. Gary Gray is a skillful director who radiates style, so it’s rather disappointing and quite baffling to see him go through the motions with this. Nothing about this film’s direction screams F. Gary Gray [aside from a suiting up montage that has a music video like style], for it’s shot like a cable action series. The shot composition is framed so blandly, for most of the shots are comprised of close-ups of characters delivering their lines and then reactionary facial expressions. Based on the way this was framed, you would think this was a director who originally specialized in comedy. Though that is how Gray got his career started, he’s proven over the years that he’s capable of delivering great works and his previous two features, Straight Outta Compton and The Fate of the Furious, proved that. Men In Black International, on the other hand, feels more like an assignment rather than a passion project. It looks like the studio meddled with his voice and had him try to mimic Barry Sonnefield and his style, which it never comes close to capturing. It felt as if the studio was afraid of doing something new and it reflects that with Gray’s direction. Besides that, he is working with bare bones of a screenplay so all of the nothingness on page is reflected on screen.

There were so many places this could’ve gone. This could’ve been a mentorship and student relationship where H shows M the ropes as they embark on this journey, or a Training Day-like plot showing that the galaxy is ruthless and you gotta play dirty sometimes. You know... something to enforce some sort of creativity that requires the leads to have some chemistry. But alas, all of that is absent because of the unfunny and chaotic mess of a script written by Art Marcum and Matt Holloway. Wait, I know those names from somewhere.

What are these writers responsible for? I feel it can’t be anything of quality.

*does a Google search*

OH no… Oh no. OH NO!!

Really? TRANSFORMERS: THE LAST KNIGHT?! The Transformers movie that implied that Transformers helped mankind through slavery, used Isabela Moner in a marketing campaign rather than a character, and had dark Optimus Prime for no reason?! My worst movie of 2017 that I tried walking out and getting my money back, but couldn’t because I was already over 20 minutes in, so the AMC employee told me I had to stay and embrace the suck?! That movie?! Well, damn it all makes sense now.

All jokes aside, the moment I found out who wrote this, I let out the biggest “OOOOOOOOH” of realization in the Starbucks I started typing this review in.

No wonder it’s expected that this movie wasted the talents of the two bankable leads when there’s not much of a script for them to work off of for it lacks energy, life, and the key ingredient: fun. And even for a two hour run time, it’s:

I can admit that Men in Black II isn’t good, but that shit was short [clocking in at 88 minutes] and funny! This just doesn’t know the definition of comedy. It attempts to avoid it like the plague as it goes for a serious tone and treats what’s supposed to be a buddy comedy as a standard adventure film.

The only humorous element out of the entire film comes from Kumail Nanjiani as an alien named Pawny who is the only character with personality that you care about. He’s funny, cute, and to reiterate FUNNY. All of the laughs I received out of this movie came from this sassy and persistent foul-mouthed alien who steals the show, for he’s the only thing that brings charisma, and he’s a CG character.

Even the characters themselves are so paper thin that there’s nothing compelling about them at all, especially Molly, which is disappointing for how strong the film initially establishes her. Agent H is a carbon copy of Thor who lacks any sort of charm and Thompson is a nerdy and naive non-character without much of a personality. What they do instead is try to incorporate a “will they or won’t they” ploy which also fails. Hemsworth and Thompson work best when there is no romantic tension forced between them. Part of the reason why they’re paired is because of an immediate infatuation that Molly develops once he steps in the room. Because platonicism isn’t a marketable practice in Hollywood blockbusters... but, OH WAIT. YES IT IS. It was present in Ragnarok and continued in Endgame between the cast’s Marvel counterparts and it worked fantastically there. The two are known to be very energetic, charming, and charismatic performers with range and talent, but because of the dull screenplay that lacks any form of originality and fun whatsoever, the leads are forced to bring their A-game. By God they try. They really do. But they’re working with nothing.

What really irks me the most about this forgettable and lifeless spinoff is how it doesn’t bare much of the identity of a Men in Black movie. To quote Will Smith’s MIB song, “What you think you saw you did not see.” Well, a lot of people see them. There is an action scene which takes place in Bolivia where H & M ride on a space vehicle and multiple people in the vicinity see them in broad daylight doing intergalactic action. And they only use the neuralizer ONCE. ONCE IN AN AREA WHERE HUNDREDS OF PEOPLE CAN SEE THEM.

You know you messed up when you can’t even follow the lyrics to the Will Smith theme.

If you’re out and wanting to see a movie starring Emma Thompson as a powerful major employer who hires a young POC named Molly in a predominantly all-white male-run industry, go see Late Night. It’s so oddly coincidental how the releases this week bear similar setups.

I wrote this on my Twitter, and I’m going to leave it here for everyone to hear.

Dear male writers of studio blockbusters,

Can you please stop forcing your actresses to utter terrible lines of dialogue about being strong women just to show how "progressive" you are? It seems every week a blockbuster is trying to

feminist and treat women as a new age trend and it's appalling. Just because you’re not of the opposite sex doesn’t mean you have to pander to it to appeal to their demographic -- which every big blockbuster seems to be doing lately. I could take the shallowness of that all-female team up sequence from Endgame. I truly could. But with that terrible new song “Speechless” from Aladdin, that inexcusable "X-Women" line from Dark Phoenix, and now in this, with lines that Tessa Thompson has to spew out, completely out of context, such as, "All women are queens" or “I love a woman in power.” I’ve given up. This is a new pinnacle of lazy writing and pandering and I’m fucking tired of it. I’m tired. WOMEN most definitely are tired. EVERYONE IS TIRED! I'm really fucking annoyed with how nearly every week there's a movie where the writers feel as is they need to stop the picture just to say how incredible they think women are. You can display women being incredible through their actions rather than just their dialogue. It's that easy.

Hell, most of the people here reading it haven’t seen the upcoming R-rated comedy Good Boys yet, and let me tell you, THAT SHIT IS PRESENT THERE! Though it lies within the 11-year-old boys and my viewing of it during SXSW, preceding my viewing of all these other flicks, I could forgive it. But I know by the time it releases in August, it’s going to be heavily criticized because of it.

But when it comes women having to recite cringe lines so obviously written by a male, it’s fucking lazy and you have no excuse for it.