Film of the Week: Men in Black – International

The first thing I’m going to say about this film is its immediate contradiction at the beginning of the film. When Agent M (Tessa Thompson) is becoming an agent for the MIB, Agent O’s (Emma Thompson) narration specifically states that the suit she is putting on will be the only suit she’ll ever wear and no other clothes as she’ll always be a part of the MIB. This is a direct reference to what Tommy Lee Jones’ character, Agent K, said in the first film when Will Smith’s character, Agent J, is getting ready for his first day in the organisation. That narration is then immediately contradicted when we see Agent H not wearing the classic suit. That statement is opposed several times throughout the film when they take their ties off, untuck and unbutton their shirts, and once again ditched the clothes for civilian ones. During the longest sequence of them not wearing their suits it didn’t look or feel like it was a MIB film, just a spy movie with an aliens in. At least they wore their suits during the final battle.

I understand the purpose of the title. The international subtitle is confirmed when we see the London’s Branch. Upon seeing this for the first time, I believed this would be mainly based in London, but instead we go all over the world. The first three films stayed relatively on one site only, with the third expanding further than New York by going to Cape Canaveral, so having the climactic fight in Paris atop the Eiffel Tower would make sense within the stylistic brand the series has approached in the previous 3 films. This film goes all over the world. Those trips other than to Paris felt a little unnecessary.

The story isn’t too bad. It’s a classic “we suspect there’s a mole in the organisation and we have to find out who it is” story that has been played out multiple times before and so therefore was easy to figure out who the mole was, even when the film so blatantly attempted to put the blame on another character. For the style of the MIB franchise, the story isn’t boring, just a little predictable.

The chemistry between the two leads, Chris Hemsworth and Tessa Thompson was one of the only redeeming factors in the film, the other was the cute alien guard, Pawny (voiced by Kumail Nanjiani) who fittingly played an important role in saving the world. Their chemistry was as strong as it was in this film due to having acted together on Thor: Ragnarok.

My overall summary of this film isn’t a description in favour of this film. I wanted to enjoy it because it was an MIB film, and I do like the franchise, but even though MIB 2 wasn’t entirely my cup of tea as it emphasised the silliness of the first one even more, it was still an MIB film. This didn’t feel like it was always an MIB film. If they were to take off their suits, or meddle with the integrity of the suits, then they should have just taken them off for the entirety of the film. MIB – International shouldn’t have the name.

Thanks for reading

Antony Hudson

(TonyHadNouns)