Formula: Men in Black II + London
If only I could come into all movies like I did MIB:
International. You see, all I wanted was a few laughs, a good action-set
piece or two, an odd callback here or there, and some actors I like playing to
their strengths. In other words, I expected exactly what I should have and
nothing more. And that's what I got.
International is a clumsy reboot of the franchise after MIIB
spent all the goodwill of the first movie and MIIIB earned none of it
back. In this, Tessa Thompson plays Molly (later Agent M). After a run in with
the MIB as a child when they failed to wipe her memory, she's made finding them
her lifelong obsession. When she finally does, she's brought in on probation
and sent to help the London office, where hotshot Agent H (Chris Hemsworth), station
chief High T (Liam Nesson), and weasely Agent C (Rafe Spall) are investigating
the curious assassination of an alien from a powerful family. And, uh, it's the
exact story you'd imagine. I don't ever look for twists in movies and I still
figured most of them out pretty early in this one. If you are seeing this for a
revolutionary or even a slick plot, you've come to the wrong movie.
The joy to be found in the movie is in Chris
Hemsworth's evolution as a comedic weirdo and Tessa Thompson further establishing
herself as a leading lady. They don't play off each other as well as they did
in Thor: Ragnorak, but they're still plenty of fun together. Kumail
Nanjiani voices an alien friend they pick up along the way. I imagine for
anyone who isn't enjoying the movie before he shows up, he's incredibly
annoying, but I found him just enjoyable enough to be charming.
I just don't have it in me to go after this movie.
It has a lot of problems. The performances could be better. I don't think it
does anything at a top-tier level. It's within a standard deviation of average
everywhere though, which is a kind of strength of it. All I can say about the
really poor scores on Metacritic and RottenTomatoes is that reviews are often
fighting the last war.
Verdict: Weakly Don't Recommend
One Last Thought: What the hell does "fighting the last war"
mean? Often, the box office returns for a franchise movie or star vehicle are
determine by the love of the previous movie. A common trend you'll see is a
first movie that opens smaller and has a long box office tail. People love the
movie so much that it gets a sequel. The sequel will be significantly worse,
but it will make as much if not more money than the first movie because the
opening weekend numbers are huge. The Hangover and Pirates of the
Caribbean are great examples of this. Or, look at how X2: X-Men United
or Spider-Man 2 were beloved, and that carried over to make the
poorly-reviewed X-Men: The Last Stand and Spider-Man 3 even
bigger hits.
Well, reviews can follow a similar trend. The reviews take on the trajectory of
the series, especially when it's in decline. Dark Phoenix isn't
appreciably worse than a number of other X-Men movies (X-Men Origins:
Wolverine, anyone?). But it got the worst reviews of the series, because
people went into it already fed up with the franchise and less willing to give
it a pass. The opposite happens with auteur directors. Your Terrence Malicks or
David Lynchs of the world would have to make several bad movies in a row before
the reviews stop giving them the benefit of the doubt. So, MIB:
International is suffering both from the fact that reviewers were
disappointed by the last couple movies or general franchise fatigue and from
the fact that it's mediocre. That mix leads to overly harsh reviews.
(Note: I do this as well. I totally fall into
group think all the time. This is just a case where I believe I managed to avoid
it.)
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