It’s been seven years since the last installment in the franchise that introduced us to the shadowy organisation tasked with protecting the earth from the scum of the universe. Black-suited heroes that police alien threats to all life on the planet, so we can continue, oblivious, with our lives. They are them, a rumour, recognizable only as deja vu and dismissed just as quickly. They are the Men in Black! And this film isn’t them. Men in Black: International, instead, is a generic action comedy, trying and failing to live up to the legacy of the black suit. Welcome to Meh in Black.

As the plot goes, several years ago, Agent’s H (Chris Hemsworth) and T (Liam Neeson) heroically defeated the Hive, halting their attempt to destroy the earth. Now, H is a layabout with little ambition, cruising through MiB with his former partner (now head of the London office) always covering for him. H is suddenly teamed up with MiB frothing fangirl and probationary Agent, M (Tessa Thompson) to protect a visiting alien royal. Things go pear-shaped and they must navigate the pitfalls of being partners while unraveling a plot that could lead to galactic destruction. Or what the MiB probably call Wednesday.



The film opens with two flashbacks in the wrong order that cut back and forth between each other. One three years back, the other 25, so I hope you have Ritalin. The Hive - super-duper-evil space aliens - have less screen time than the opening credits and the bulk of their story is handled as exposition. The tagline of this film should be “Tell, Don’t Show”, because that’s all they do. There are paintings depicting the battle too. Notably, there’s a painting of K and J’s battle from the first film. That, along with the one line from Frank the Pug and a walk-on by the Worm Guys, are the only reminders of the franchise you won’t be seeing.

The tagline of this film should be “Tell, Don’t Show”, because that’s all they do.

The story feels like they downloaded the basic action/comedy plot off HowTaRiteGud.com and tried to squeeze it into an MiB suit. But no amount of fine tailoring can hide this poor fit. With this being the fourth iteration in this series, the look and feel is established and should be easy enough to follow: Step One - The suit doesn’t come off! As Z once said to K, “It’s the last suit you’ll ever wear”. Agent H can’t seem to leave his on. The tie comes off, the shirt comes off, and then, let’s bang an alien or two. And then, let’s put him in pastels and have him drive a wood-paneled speed boat too… and he does.

No! It's Men in BLACK!



At least the lacklustre characterisation is consistent. The villains have a plot motivation that’s barely explained, except for one sentence that’s easy to miss if you’re distracted by the umpteenth explosion. The tone has shifted from conspiracies and subterfuge to a light and fun romp with lasers and multicoloured creatures. The message about diversity is present but not pedantic, which isn’t hard to do considering there’s an alien every three feet – like the four-eyed alien MiB with the South African accent. The question of a group calling itself the Men in Black when two of the core characters are women is mentioned about three times. But, little comes of it except a rather cheap attempt at a joke.

The villains have a plot motivation that’s barely explained, except for one sentence that’s easy to miss if you’re distracted by the umpteenth explosion.

There’s also a tiny sidekick that follows M around, called Pawny. He drops one-liners at H’s expense and is the mouthpiece for all of Agent M’s frustrations, because Vulcans don’t show emotion. Let me explain…

Molly/Agent M’s character arc is a straight line. After seeing her parents neutralised for seeing a rogue alien - that looks suspiciously like Disney’s Stitch - she vows to find the Men in Black and become one of them. To this end, she applies for and turns down the CIA and FBI because, though she scores are off the charts in her evaluations, they don’t have a checkbox on the application form for MiB. She then hacks MiB’s satellites to find their next starship recovery and so, locates their headquarters. After getting caught, the conversation that leads to her being hired is:

“Why should we hire you?”
“Because I’m awesome.”
“You’re absolutely right.”

She’s driven, emotionless and practically perfect in every way. She is free from failure; a higher being playing the game of life with the cheat codes on… She is a Molly in Black! Hollywood did the same thing with Rey in Star Wars. I hope one day they realise that every story can have a strong, capable character that happens to be female and not a strong capable female character that happens to be the messiah.



Agent H. *Sigh*. He is a rogue and a rapscallion… I was half-expecting him to toss his head back and laugh like a swashbuckling sailor going “Haahaaaa!” He drinks, he womanises, he’s a discount James Bond without the class aka Austin Powers. Naturally he works alone and has a gloominess to him that feels unmotivated. His self-destructive behaviour is him trying to deal with… something… but the amount of time it took me to write this sentence was longer than the film spent addressing it. His brash behaviour goes well with a film that’s left subtlety neuralised in a dumpster; a film for the teen market, peppered with humour and dialogue that’s trying desperately to be cool. There's even a Thor callback in one scene, because that's what this film needs: Chris Hemsworth saying, "Hey, remember when I was in something worth a damn?"



Liam Neeson’s Agent High T (cos we’re in London, nudge, nudge, wink, wink, oh God!) is H’s father figure, constantly covering for him, the reason why barely established. It could have gone a long way to removing the feeling like they phoned his backstory in. Lastly, if you put scenes depicting beloved characters in your trailer and on the poster, and then not in your film, there is a special circle of hell just for you.

Like Hellboy, this film is like eating a pallet-cleansing sorbet, and no meal. In the end, you feel unfulfilled and slightly dizzy from the want of something better.