Men in Black International

Well, it appears that the Earth is in peril yet again so we need the snazzy dressed ones to help us…no,not Kingsman (prequel out next year guys!) but Men in Black…International.

Because you can’t get Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones to save the World (AGAIN) we found these guys…because apparently the World is incapable of saving itself.

In the fourth outing of the series, we expand further….not only do we follow different agents, but we go to a different part of the World! Who would have thought that protecting the planet from the scum of the Universe had branches beyond the USA?

A woman who has been trying to find MIB all her life finally tracks them down and asks to become one of them. She becomes a recruit and her probationary mission has her paired with a reckless agent in London. The agents need to save the Earth from invaders but there is something that is causing them grief each time they get a bit further in thier quest. There are plenty of aliens, out of this World humour (yeah I said it OK?) and Star studded cast…but…was it a good movie?

Weeeeellll…….kinda.

I’m glad it wasn’t the 21 Jump Street mashup they were considering a while back because frankly that sounded awful….but this movie wasn’t excellent. The movie was better than MIB3 but if you’re honest that’s not a difficult achievement. It felt like there was something missing and I don’t mean J and K either. This movie felt like it was more overblown CGI than anything else (now it’s pretty much the same with the others but this one seems worse to me). The story was rather by the numbers and the bad guy finale was almost obvious with things that happened very early on in the movie making it quite predictable in a lot of ways.

I’m glad despite the controversy that was surrounding Liam Neeson that he wasn’t removed from the movie as he played High T quite well, and I don’t know if it’s me but Hemsworth just seems to be characters that have fallen off the rails and become worthy again (speaking of worthy, look out for the Thor in-joke) so his character in a lot of ways was predictable, especially since seeing Bro Thor in Endgame. It feels like the actors were given almost typecast roles in a lot of ways (the only way this could have been epically typecast was if High T’s family got abducted….he has a specialised set of skill you know…) but they worked well together and despite it being rather predictable in many ways it was a rather fun movie and miles better compared to MIB3 (although in all honesty that would not really be too difficult).

If this is to be the continuation of the Men (and indeed Women, let’s not get into that argument) in Black then it might have been good to refer back to J and K, to say they were either working or maybe retired, I think it would have been a nice touch….but if I’m honest I really hope that this is the last movie in the set. Sadly, that’s highly unlikely though, because money….they’ll keep making them as long as people keep watching them.

So all in all, MIB International is a by the numbers, typecast movie that’s ok to switch your brain off to if you want something fun to watch. If you are big fans of the legacy of J and K’s world, you may want to potentially give it a miss though.

MIB International is rated 12A and is in cinemas in 2D, IMAX, iSense 2D, Dolby 2D, 4DX, and RealD 3D.