Director: F. Gary Gray
Genre: Action, Sci-Fi, Comedy, Adventure
Runtime: 114 Minutes
Main Cast: Chris Hemsworth, Tessa Thompson, Liam Neeson, Rebecca Ferguson, Emma Thompson, Rafe Spall, Kumail Nanjiani, Jess Radomska, Kayvan Novak
Plot: After a childhood encounter with an alien changed her life, Molly has spent years trying to find the Men in Black in order to join their ranks. Once she succeeds, she is thrown right into the deep end as it is discovered there’s a mole within the organisation.
My Thoughts: I think I’ve only seen the original MiB movie but I liked it a lot. It was funny, the action scenes were cool and it had aliens! What more could younger me want? With all the reboots and remakes lately, I guess a new MiB movie was inevitable, and honestly I’ve felt like the only person around who was actually excited to see it! If nothing more, we get Chris Hemsworth and Tessa Thompson team up again, which is bound to be fun.
Surprising no one, I set myself up for a fall. I enjoyed Men in Black: International, more than most by the sounds of it, but it wasn’t what I was hoping for. It just took itself too seriously most of the time and the jokes weren’t coming fast enough. The plot is really messy, and the ending was just a bit…sad, really. Still, there were plenty of things to enjoy. I’ve decided that every movie needs an Emma Thompson cameo. After Bridget Jones’ Baby and now this, I just want her to turn up and be sassy and sarcastic in everything I watch!
There are a few appearances from some familiar non-human characters, but I kind of wish we got to see a little more of them. There’s also a brilliant, tiny new character who I’ll get into in a moment, but he’s a show-stealer. All in all, there are definitely worse ways to spend 2 hours, but if you’re going to watch a silly action movie in which cool people clad in suits shoot at aliens…you’re probably better sticking with the original.
Best Bit: Pawny! Or Steve, as he called himself. He’s a little alien who was also a pawn on a chessboard protecting his queen, who sadly was murdered. Left feeling hopeless, Agent H convinced him to serve Molly, Agent M instead, and every time he popped up he made me laugh. I’m hoping Funko are putting in a rush order of figures of him so I can get one for my dashboard soon…
Worst Bit: Spoiler alert here! After watching the trailer, and scoffing at my excitement, my husband announced ‘It’s obvious – Liam Neeson is going to be a bad guy’. How it was obvious, I don’t know, but I spent the whole movie unable to get the thought out of my head and curse him, he was right. He’s so annoying. He did the same with Gossip Girl, he’s got a plot-twist radar!
Fun Trivia: The film was originally going to be a “Jump Street” – “Men in Black” crossover with Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill reprising their roles from the franchise. However, plans fell apart, so it became a spin-off with Chris Hemsworth and Tessa Thompson.
[ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! THIS WOULD HAVE BEEN AMAZING.]
My Rating: 3 pairs of standard issue black glasses that you’ll need to wear so you don’t forget all about this movie. On second thought…you don’t want to wear them, do you?
I feel like I’m the only person excited for this too haha (mostly for Chris Hemsworth and Tessa Thompson!) I’ve never seen any MiB before, but I’m glad I’ve got low expectations–hopefully they’ll be met haha. I would’ve LOVED a Jump Street crossover, omg, that sounds insane!!
Great review!!
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Yes! They are such a good duo! Hopefully you enjoy it – my friend went in not expecting much and she enjoyed it more than I did!
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Omg your husband! First he points out Keanu’s running and now this! 😂 He was right with the obvious though because Neeson is such a famous dude so when he was featured so little in the trailer it was suspicious
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It’s honestly scary sometimes. He doesn’t even watch lots of movies but when he does he’ll spot someone and be like ‘Oh that’s the Dad from that movie in the 80s that noones even heard of’. He has weird superpowers haha!
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Nice review, Pawny was my favourite character too, even though i didn’t have somebody say who the villain would be, after the opening sequences it was way to obvious it was going to be him, i did find the film mostly boring for the potential of the cast
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Yeah, it sucks because I’d like to say I would have picked up on it myself early on in the movie but now I’ll never know!
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I was sort of hoping it was going to be Agent H, just for some sort of shock
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They were definitely hinting at it a lot!
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Sounds better than I anticipated it to be. I like Hemsworth but the trailer was pretty terrible to me.
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My friend went to see it even though she hated the trailer and ended up liking the movie more than I did – so maybe there’s hope?
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Oh! I didn’t know that this was supposed to be a crossover between 21 Jump Street! I still need to watch that movie! Anyway, I’ve seen this movie and I really enjoyed it, although they could have developed the characters a little better and I kind of wished that Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones reprise their roles in this film.
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Yes! I would have loved a small cameo role from either of them, it would have made it that little bit better.
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Agree!
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My husband does the same thing! I remember when we sent to see Sahara when that was in theaters, we’re about 5 minutes in and he says “I bet this this and this” happens and it literally played out exactly like it. Stupid movie to begin with, but now it had to be stupid and he had to be right.
As for this, I’ll probably wait for DVD as much as I love Hemsworth and Tessa. I just don’t care enough about the MIB franchise.
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It’s the worst, haha! He did it with some spy movie with Kit Harrington in too – called out the mole within the first 5 minutes.
MiB:I is definitely not worth rushing out to see, so yeah, wait till it’s on Netflix or something 🙂
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Dang! I was really hoping that with Chris Hemsworth it would be really funny! I guess you can never beat the original:-)
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He is definitely the source of most of the comedy!
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Well I’ve been hearing that this movie wasn’t great and this post wasn’t a surprise… the trailer wasn’t great either, I’m glad to see I’m not the only one. But what the hell, I’m gonna go watch it anyway!!!!!!! Movies are always fun and Thor and Valkryie are even more fun 😃
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You should definitely go and see it! There’s still a lot to like, and like you say, those leads are so much fun together!
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I’ll definite check this one out sooner or later because Emma Thompson’s cameos are the best 😃
I didn’t know it was supposed to be a crossover. Maybe if they went with the original idea the film would have worked better (?)
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I definitely think it would have been better!
Emma Thompson is just amazing!
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