Men in Black International

The Men in Black have always protected the Earth from the scum of the universe. In this new adventure, they tackle their biggest threat to date: a mole in the Men in Black organization.

MIB: International is, of course, a reboot of/sequel to the very successful movies with Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones from back in the day. Here we have Tessa Thompson (still have a huge girl crush on her) who is determined to become an MIB agent after having an experience with a tiny alien when she was a child and failing to be neuralised. You have seen the poster, so you know she gets her wish, courtesy of the amazing Emma Thompson who is as close to the Big Boss as we see.

Agent M, as Tessa becomes, is sent off to London where there is an Unspecified Problem and finds herself working with Agent H, played by Chris, the Greater Hemsworth. There is action aplenty – much of London is wrecked though I think Greggs may have survived – the inevitable heroes on the run plot, and some lovely scenery. All is, of course, resolved more or less satisfactorily.

I guessed who the mole was going to be within the first 5 minutes, based on a tried and trusted formula which I will not share here but which has worked for almost every TV crime story I have ever seen and didn’t let me down.

We could have done with a few more actual aliens, though the ones we have, especially the alien twins, were pretty cool and I even liked Pawny (who some have found annoying I know).

The touching reunion at a key moment plot device was fairly obvious, the person being signposted as the mole was clearly never going to be the one, and there was insufficient Emma Thompson, though honestly when is that ever not the case?

I suppose I’m being really picky here but I genuinely liked the film. The chemistry between H and M is the main reason it worked for me. It’s light, amusing rather than laugh out loud funny and fairly predictable in its story, but for a Thursday night date movie it hit the spot, and I can see myself happily watching it again. It’s fun, and sometimes that’s all a film needs to be 🙂

Dazzling details: directed by F Gary Gray, MIB: I is 1h 54m long and rated 12A for moderate violence, threat, sex references, language