The Men In Black are back with Men In Black: International and it provide us with new agents, new HQs, and a hell lot of self-irony.
In 1996, little Molly (Tessa Thompson) witnessed how her parents were neutralised while she helped an alien escape from the MIB. 20 years later, Molly is one of the brightest minds when it comes to science and combat and now every agency would love to have her, but she is only interested in joining the mysterious people who wear sunglasses even at night. She discovers that an alien ship will crash soon on earth and decides to go there and that is when she finally finds the New York HQ. Persistent as she is, she persuades Agent O (Emma Thompson) to give her a chance.
We learn that Gustav Eiffel was an MIB agent and he discovered wormholes and then used the Eiffel tower as an immigration point and it seems three years ago, the Hive wanted to get to earth.
As a new recruit Molly, now called Agent M, is sent to London where she ends up working with Agent H (Chris Hemsworth), who is the super agent of this bureau, since he saved the earth from the Hive with his partner and now boss, Agent High T (Liam Neeson) three years ago. They are assigned to protect the alien Vungus for diplomatic reasons, but their mission is compromised and all there is left for them to do is to protect a boxlike thing, which truly is the most powerful weapon in the galaxy. What follows can be shortly described as two agents having no clue what to do on their assignment.
In the beginning, the movie gives a little nod to the previous movies with short appearances of Frank the Pug and the Worms before heading to their own story. If you are looking for other familiar faces, I apologise for the disappointment because that’s where it ends.
MIB International does profit from the real-life friendship between Tessa and Chris. The jokes come naturally, and they share the spotlight equally. However, it does seem that Hollywood became a little bit small thinking of how often actors are working together on different projects lately. The movie even tries to make a change when it comes to think of a new name for the agency, but Men and Woman in Black just does not sound catchy. At least, MAWIB does not.
There are far less aliens shown in comparison to the previous movies, but those introduced are pretty awesome. Of course, there must come a funny substitute for the Worms. M and H get a little sidekick, Pawny (voice lend by Kumail Nanjiani). After his Queen is killed, he swears his loyalty to M and from then on, the movie gets so much funnier. This little fella will bright up your day in no time!
At some point, it seems that the story goes a little sideways. H mostly plays a dummy, which was fun but you get to the point where it just begins to become slightly irritating. Thankfully, later on, we do get to know why he was that way. We see the alien which Molly saved as a kid again, we see Rebecca Ferguson as Riza, an alien war lord and ex-love interest of H, and it turns out that there is a mole in the London bureau. For me, the plotline was not tight enough and it was not sure until the end where the story would in fact end.
