Men In Black: International

It’s June and that can only mean two things: frustrating weather and unnecessary franchise reboots. Rain? Check. Bringing back the Men In Black without Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones? Double check.

We’re presented then with Men In Black: The Further Adventures Of Thor and Valkyrie [checks notes] ok, so that’s not the ‘official’ title but it works as well as Men In Black: International.

Chris Hemsworth and Tessa Thompson bringing their Asgardian chemistry from the MCU is easily the best thing here. The two have an obvious rapport and it elevates any scene they’re in (which is pretty much every scene.)

Plot-wise, we’re a little thin: receive MacGuffin, get attacked and chased for said MacGuffin, realise not all is as it seems, predictable plot twist. You can see the reveal a mile away no matter how hard Director F Gary Gray tries to mask it.

This is largely because the script is a clunker, blessedly not filled with modern slang or real world references (barring a bizarre Piers Morgan mention) but still filled with cringey jokes and a lot of bad guy speech which prevents any bad things from actually happening (note to future bad guys: if you want to shoot the hero just shoot them.) Having said this, the pretty stonking cast (Liam Neeson and Emma Thompson are the heads of the MIB: London and New York divisions respectively) swallow a lot of the cheese.

There are a few funny moments, largely to do with the central combo and their team up with Kumail Nanjiani’s alien Pawny (essentially the new Frank the pug) and there’s also a lot of very decent CGI going on. It breezes by as well, non-threatening but not boring.

There are three types of reboot: the ‘take-it-somewhere-new’ and eclipse the sequels essential (Creed, Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes etc), the ‘please-delete-this-from-the-canon’ stinker (X-Men Origins: Wolverine) and the ‘watch-it-as-part-of-a-marathon’ companion piece. We’ve seen an awful lot of the latter in recent times with Jurassic World, Ghostbusters and Jason Bourne and to that list you can add this new MIB. No one asked for it, but equally, no one’s complaining that it’s here.

Like the Men In Black and the aliens they hide: they exist, but it’s all too easy to not know they’re there.

2 stars **