MEN IN BLACK : INTERNATIONAL - Tuesday 18th June 2019.

'MEN IN BLACK : INTERNATIONAL' which I saw earlier in the week is the fourth film in the ever popular science fiction action comedy franchise and is Directed by F. Gary Gray whose previous Directorial outings take in the likes of 'The Negotiator', 'The Italian Job', 'Be Cool', 'Law Abiding Citizen', 'Straight Outta Compton' and 'The Fate of the Furious'. The first three films in the series were Directed by Barry Sonnenfeld, in 1997, 2002 and 2012, grossed collectively approaching US$1.7B on the back of combined production budgets of US$495M and starred Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones as our alien crime fighting duo Agent J and Agent K respectively. This instalment is a sort of sequel, sort of spin-off that cost around about US$100M, was released Stateside last week too, has so far recovered US$113M in Box Office receipts and has garnered generally lacklustre critical Reviews so far.

Back in the mid-'90's and young Molly Wright sees her parents being neuralysed by a couple of Men in Black Agents who are on the hunt for a pesky up to no good alien, that Molly helps escape. Molly herself escapes being neuralysed by averting her eyes from her bedroom window up above the street where her parents are talking to the Agents. Fast forward some twenty years and Molly (Tessa Thompson) is unsuccessful in her attempts to join the FBI and the CIA on the basis of her wild conclusions that alien life forms live among us, and she really wants to help combat them having made it her life goal to do so.

Molly is able to track down a crashed alien space craft and follows the MiB vehicles with captured alien in custody, back to their secret headquarters. She successfully manages to infiltrate the HQ but is captured by the hi-tech security scanning devices and is subsequently questioned by Agent O (Emma Thompson) upon whom Molly makes a sufficient enough impression to be granted probationary agent status as Agent M, and is instantly assigned to the London branch of the MiB. Once there she is quickly introduced to High T (Liam Neeson) who heads up the UK Division.

There Agent M is assigned to Agent H (Chris Hemsworth) the most highly regarded Agent working out of the London Office who saved the world back in 2016 with High T atop the Eiffel Tower when they prevented 'The Hive' from gaining access through a wormhole there with potentially catastrophic consequences for our planet.

Later that evening both Agents meet up with Vungus the Ugly (Kayvan Novak) in night club. Vungus is a member of an alien Royal Family who is a long term good friend of H. Upon leaving, Vungus' car is attacked by alien twins ('Les Twins' aka Larry and Laurent Bourgeois) who are able to harness the power of pure energy making them almost indestructible. Vungus is seriously wounded, but on this occasion the twins are thwarted (but only temporarily) by the might of the high tech weaponry readily available to our pair of protagonists from their vehicle.

Moments before dying Vungus passes a multi-dimensional purple coloured crystal on to M, claiming that he cannot trust H with it as he has changed since they last met some years ago. In a debrief meeting in High T's office Agent C (Rafe Spall) openly shows his contempt for H's actions. M however, has concluded that only a handful of people knew Vungus' location when he was attacked, which leads her to believe that Vungus' location was betrayed by one of their own agents. Reeling at the impact of a traitor within the MiB ranks, High T assigns C and M to conduct an investigation while H is assigned to driving his desk. Further investigations seem to determine that the twins may have had DNA traces of the Hive, a parasitic race who invade other planets by merging with the DNA of the conquered species. M learns that H and High T were responsible for driving off a Hive invasion in Paris in 2016, but since then H's attitude has gone downhill, showing a slack approach to his work and seemingly only holding on to his job because of his relationship with High T and his past track record.

H convinces M to join him in chasing up a lead in Marrakesh, where they come across 'Pawny' (voiced by Kumail Nanjiani), the sole survivor of a small group of aliens who were attacked by the Twins. Pawny pledges his loyalty to M, as his new Queen, but they are then attacked by MiB agents coordinated by C, who has recovered CCTV footage of Vungus handing the crystal to M, and as a result now believes that she is the traitor in their midst.

Helped by one of his alien contacts, H is able to acquire a rocket-powered hover bike and escape with M and Pawny. Successfully evading their marauding colleagues, they crash land on the dunes out in the desert, where they learn that the crystal Vungus gave M actually conceals an all powerful weapon generated by a compressed blue giant. As they repair the damaged bike, H's alien contact who had stowed away in a drink bottle, manages to steal the crystal and take it to Riza Stravos (Rebecca Fergusson), an alien arms merchant with whom H had a relationship in the past.

Having repaired the jet propelled hover bike, the gang of three travel by speed boat to Riza's island fortress where they attempt to infiltrate the base and recover the weapon, but are caught by Riza and her bodyguard. M gets caught in a fight with Riza while H gets beaten up in no uncertain terms by the alien bodyguard, but always somehow miraculously manages to get back up (just like Thor!) However, this bodyguard turns out to be the very same alien that M rescued as a child, and recognising each other, he returns the favour by allowing them to leave while he keeps Riza apprehended. While attempting to get off the island the three are attacked by the Twins once again, but they are killed by High T and a group of Agents freshly arrived on the scene.

And so case closed, or is it? Back at London MiB HQ at a celebratory party, both H and M have a moment of clarity and realise that the Twins' passing comments could mean that they wanted the weapon to use against the Hive rather than to use it for them. This resonated especially when the only evidence of Hive DNA was provided by High T. Agent C concedes that the evidence points to the notion of a deception by High T, and so permits H and M to follow High T to the Eiffel Tower. En route to the wormhole, M questions H's memory of his defeat of the Hive revealing that he was probably neuralysed, which is confirmed when they confront High T atop the Eiffel Tower. The Hive transformed High T into one of their own and neuralysed H so that he could be seen as the 'hero' and to mask their true intentions. The High T/Hive 'hybrid' manifests itself and is able to launch a wormhole that will draw the Hive to Earth. As H and the hybrid fight it out, H is able to draw out High T's true personality just long enough for M to use the weapon to destroy High T and the encroaching Hive infestation.

With the case now well and truly closed, Agent O joins H and M in Paris, where she grants M full agent status and appoints H as probationary Head of MiB's London branch until such time as a new head is found.

Aside from the fairly obvious chemistry that Hemsworth and Tessa Thompson share together on screen, and Hemsworth flexing his emerging comedic chops once again, there is little else going for this effects laden albeit pedestrian, play it safe, by the numbers fourth instalment in this flagging franchise. I honestly had expected more from 'Men in Black : International' but emerged from the theatre feeling totally underwhelmed by a film that relies all to heavily on its CGI set pieces, which have by now all become far to commonplace to create any point of difference here, at the expense of any real storyline, and what thinly veiled storyline there is you can see coming from ten miles away. This is predictable fluff that does nothing for the franchise other than seal its fate like the final nail in the coffin, and its disappointing to see fine acting talent like Hemsworth, Thompson, Thompson, Neeson and Spall succumb to the dredging that this film has so far garnered, despite the best intentions no doubt of F. Gary Gray. All style over substance.

'Men in Black : International' merits two claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard, out of a potential five.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-