Men In Black: International review

A sequel of sorts to the previous three Men In Black movies (blink and you’ll miss a portrait of Will Smith’s Agent Jay and Tommy Lee Jones’s Kay from the original in the MIB office), Men In Black: International attempts to refresh the franchise with two new agents – Hemsworth’s H and Tessa Thompson’s M – fighting to keep peace on an Earth where aliens live incognito among us.

New recruit M is teamed with suave London-based agent H to babysit an alien named Vungus, but things don’t go to plan and soon the new partners are trotting about the globe trying to retrieve an important gizmo while investigating a possible mole within MIB itself.

With Emma Thompson reprising her role from Men In Black 3, Neeson joining as the head of the London office and Nanjiani providing the voice of cute little alien Pawny, this features a terrific cast with Hemsworth and Tessa Thompson (who is the movie’s true lead) on top form. However, despite the combined comic talents on screen, this is surprisingly bland in the humour department, with only a glimmer of the wit and charisma of the earlier movies (a big mistake is the woeful underuse of Ferguson as H’s alien ex-girlfriend).

The locations (which include the Italian island of Ischia, Paris and Morocco) look great and the CGI is impressive, but all the flashy weapons, cool modes of transport and star power can’t cover up for a lacklustre script and a plot that could have been written on the back of a napkin.

There are moments where it works, such as a high tech pursuit through a Marrakech market, but in the end this is a movie that will pass the time amiably enough but never get close the galactic awesomeness of the original.