When Men in Black aired for the first time in 1997, it oozed with charm and quirk, plus some really cool aliens that it spawned a trilogy. Now Men in Black: International appears as a sequel spin-off that wants to achieve what the original did and it somehow manages to fall flat on its face.
The plot follows Men in Black agents H and rookie M, both played by Chris Hemsworth and Tessa Thompson respectively, having to stop aliens who can take the form of humans from arriving on Earth and foil their mischievous plans. With a simple yet subtle story, you would expect a more expansive explanation of the universe and how it all works. However, lackluster action and forgettable plot makes a poor showing of the movie which was trying to emulate its predecessor.
Chris Hemsworth and Tessa Thompson’s chemistry together on-set is one of the highlights of the movie as they have already worked together before on Thor: Ragnarok and the Avenger movies. They made the chemistry work out with witty humour and also some great acting. Unfortunately, there was not much to say about the rest of the movie. Do not get me wrong. They do make a great pair, but they had big shoes to fill in from Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones.
The character design of the aliens were also not as imaginable as the previous movies and even kind of stereotypical. Not that it was a bad thing, but they could have made it more imaginative, considering there are supposedly millions of types of aliens within the Men in Black universe. They could have used more alien types to made them much more standout.
Overall, it was a decent attempt at following in the footsteps of the original show and try to make it their own. But the truth is, Men in Black: International tanked heavily at the box office. After nearly a week in the theatres, it only raked in US$ 113 million.
Realistically, the movie should have done better than it did but with a lot of mediocrity in its plot, it so rightfully deserved the score of 23% on Rotten Tomatoes. Hopefully this will not be the end of Men in Black franchise. They had something going for them, it just needs to be better.
