Men in Black: International: a galactically gormless fall to earth

Men in Black: International is a 2019 American science fiction action comedy film directed by F. Gary Gray and written by Art Marcum and Matt Holloway. It is a spin-off of the Men in Black film series, which is loosely based on the Malibu/Marvel comics of the same name by Lowell Cunningham.

The film stars Chris Hemsworth, Tessa Thompson, Kumail Nanjiani, Rebecca Ferguson, Rafe Spall, Laurent and Larry Bourgeois, Emma Thompson, and Liam Neeson, with Tim Blaney also reprising his role as Frank the Pug from the first two films.On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 24% based on 255 reviews, with an average rating of 4.49/10.

The website’s critical consensus reads, “Amiable yet forgettable, MiB International grinds its stars’ substantial chemistry through the gears of a franchise running low on reasons to continue.”On Metacritic the film has a weighted average score of 38 out of 100, based on 50 critics, indicating “generally unfavorable reviews”. Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of “B” on an A+ to F scale, the lowest score of the franchise, while those at PostTrak gave it a 72% overall positive score and a 46% “definite recommend”.

Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian called it “Meh in Black, making another intensely tiresome and pointless reappearance” and gave the film 1 out of 5 stars.Peter DeBruge of Variety said that “The connection between Tessa Thompson and Hemsworth is what saves the day, not anything their characters do onscreen” and called the film itself “amusing, if uneven”.

Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune gave the film 2.5 out of 4 stars, writing: “Men in Black: International isn’t bad; it’s an improvement over Men in Black II (2002) and Men in Black 3 (2012), sequels that even its makers may have forgotten. As a species we appear destined to revisit this basic concept and renew the hunt for fresh variations on the zingy, disarming first picture, which brought the Lowell Cunningham comics to the screen so shrewdly and well in 1997.”