NEURALYSER NEEDED

MOVIE
Men In Black: International
Chris Hemsworth, Tessa Thompson
Director F Gary Gray
Review Ray Chan

If Chris Hemsworth is looking for a new franchise to get his teeth into after leaving The Avengers, then the Men In Black series would seem right up his alley.
    After all, it combines humour, action and sci fi elements in much the same way Thor:Ragnarok did, with director Taika Waititi's free-flowing God Of Thunder threequel allowing the Aussie to showcase a much-praised improvisation side to his screen persona.
    Yet curiously, where the three previous MIB instalments shone for their genuinely funny interplay between the heroes and bad guys, in Men In Black: International Hemsworth and fellow Thor co-star Tessa Thompson both appear to be locked into rigid characterisations and underwhelming banter that give them little leeway to emerge as a memorable pairing.
    Hemsworth’s emotional range has been hindered by the arrogant and irritating swagger of his Agent H character. Thompson, comically delightful as Valkyrie, portrays the scholarly, serious Agent M, who’s on probation and rarely comes out of her shell.
    While the duo undoubtedly have great chemistry, they're really stuck with what they're given, and can only elevate this film so far, as the organisation once again has to confront an alien threat.
    In fact, both are given backstories that appear to be more engaging than their main arcs in the movie.
    H once saved the world, granting him hero status in the agency, in the process becoming envied and despised by some of his peers.
    M, for her part,  survived an alien experience as a child with her memory of the event still intact. Yet despite spending years trying to track down the Men In Black, driven by determination, smarts and charisma, these winning attributes mostly disappear when she joins the MIB and the film's main plot gets started.
    The same malaise seems to have descended upon the action scenes, which while well-executed, amount to little else.
    A sequence in which H and M ride an MIB-designed bike through the streets of Marrakesh (seemingly the go-to site for spy and action chases in a thousand other movies) is shot well and ends spectacularly. But the computer-generated spectacle misses an emotional punch, and the villains that our heroes go up against lack any sort of menace about them.
    Along those lines, the supporting cast is also packed with talented people who don't get to shine: Emma Thompson is impressive as the veteran Agent O dishing out orders, but does little else; Kumail Nanjiani struggles to deliver the chortles as the tiny, wisecracking alien chesspiece creature Pawny; and Rebecca Ferguson just looks weird even for an alien, with a third arm and a hideous wig.
    To be fair, MIB: International is not inherently terrible. Many of the elements that made MIB popular are there: the slick, fancy gizmos, the exotic outworlders, the memory-erasing neuralysers … but it seems that the novelty has faded with time, and there's little that's particularly fun or exciting. 
    While it's a perfectly functional film with some competent special effects and tight action sequences, the heart and the humour of the originals seem to be lost.
    MIB: International does break new ground by involving more women this time around, and there’s an amusing scene where the two Thompsons debate the name of the organisation. It’d be interesting to see if the bravado is extended into the next episode, by renaming it Women in Black. 

#sonypicturesaus #mibinternational