Plot hole: Spoiler. Agent M points out as highly suspicious that the twin assassins knew the location of Vungus, and High T backs her up on this, saying that only a handful of MIB officers could have leaked that information. High T also established that those aliens were part of the Hive collective. It turned out that they were not part of the Hive, and the Hive connection was made-up entirely by the villain himself...which is the Hive! What he did was absurdly counterproductive to his cause: nothing except the report he himself made up connected the Hive at all with the case.
Men in Black: International (2019)
3 reviews
Directed by: F. Gary Gray
Starring: Liam Neeson, Chris Hemsworth, Rebecca Ferguson, Tessa Thompson
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(5 votes)
I rented this movie from RedBox.
OK, so I'm a big fan of the other 3 movies. I even really love Men in Black 3. I haven't made up my mind yet, but I might even find 3 my favorite of the franchise, even though 1 is the best film. I am understanding of the problems with MiB 2 with the issues they had in filming, especially the last minute rewrites they had to go through due to 9/11 forcing them to have to alter the entire climax of the movie. Most people don't like 3, but I love it. It's considered a bad movie but I disagree.
I can not say that about MiB International. This movie is terrible. The plotting is splotchy and a confusing mess, the twists usually don't make much sense yet you can still see them coming a mile away. The primary characters you can't even really relate to at all. First of all the political subtext is too in your face in this film, as they are desperately trying to paint Chris Hemsworth. Agent H, as pretty much the walking personification of the "Toxic Male", and it's way over the top. Nobody acts like that, and it's not the least bit funny. And then there's the main character, Molly, or Agent M. It's not subtle at all the feminist angle they are trying to force into this, especially with some of the dialog between her and Agent O. When made so in your face, it becomes distracting and seriously distracts from the film. For example, just look at the movie Annihilation, which is actually pretty much an all female cast, with an all girl team going into the situation and the movie following them, but never once is it made a big deal out of. And that movie is fantastic. It's subtle, so much that you don't even really think about the fact you're watching an all female team of soldiers/scientists going into this situation to save the day. But with MiB International, it's thrown into your face every other scene that this character is a girl and oh me oh my how she must struggle because she's a girl, or making a point to make the men look like idiots so she has to save the day.
Then there is the whole beginning to the film that falls completely apart. The film makers seem to have fully lost track of what made the first movie so great, memorable and charming. Some of the best scenes and parts of the first movie is where J is figuring things out, going through his training, outsmarting the other potential recruits, the pencil scene, the shooting gallery scene, his first encounter with an alien, those first scenes with K. And it takes up a good portion of the film as he is seeped into this new world, taking us along for the ride. It's very much an experience. All that is completely neglected in this movie. With Molly, we go through her backstory as a child, to her going through a job interview, to then finding an alien crime scene and infiltrating it, then breaking into the MiB HQ, to a very quick montage... if you can call it that, of her training and suiting up and then being put on her first assignment as an agent... and this all happens in just 17 minutes of the film. The pacing is all over the place. And her training isn't even training. Where in the first film we follow J along his journey and see what he goes through, to even his fingerprints being burnt off. None of that here. O says she'll give Molly a try, and then the very next damn shot is her looking at some computer screens showing Molly's scores and results as all top of her class. All of the good stuff skipped. Then with O giving the classic speech that K gave to J about the MiB and what he now is... is given to Molly as she just mugs for the camera in a suit holding a gun for 2 minutes. Just looking at the camera with glasses making faces and posing. That's it, that's all it is. The rest of the movie has similar issues.
Most of the humor falls flat on it's face, save for one character, Pawny, who has some funny moments and lines. He might have been the best part of the movie and he's a comic relief side character that shows up later. Though there was one moment involving a beard alien and some water that had me pausing the movie to laugh hard. But that was the only moment like that in the film. It's just not good, easily the worst movie I've yet seen this year. And I watched Howard the Duck for the first time this year... just think about that.
Mistake Status: I was too irritated and annoyed with this film to really look for any. I did catch one mistake with birds towards the beginning though. Not sure I'll come back to this but maybe. It'll have to hit the $3 movie bin at Walmart before I buy it.
Unwilling to let this franchise rest, MIB: International is a forced, mildly entertaining and unnecessary sequel that follows Agents H and M (Chris Helmsworth as Henry and Tessa Thompson as Molly) as they try to stop shape-shifters and a race that conquers planets by merging their DNA with the conquered. Blink and you'll miss cameos by the worms and the pug dog. Changing the location of the story to outside the USA adds some accents and a hint of a British sensibility but not even the inclusion of Liam Neeson and Emma Thompson can help this dry and tame tale.
Chris Hemsworth looks like a great guy: handsome as he is, he has an innate charme and gives you the feeling that he could really be a fun dude to have a beer with or something. That being said, he has much better acting range than the "hunky good guy who is a bit of an airhead" that is now his go-to persona in every movie. Here, him bumbling throughout the movie does not quite work, and manages to be overshadowed in annoyance perhaps just by Tessa Thompson's positively awkward character - if it was an attempt to write a 'strong female character', it should be cited as a negative example. Probably the poor script is to blame here for the lack of on-screen chemistry between the two: the movie after all can boast probably the most phoned-in plot twists of the year. I was not particularly bothered by the special effects not being top of the notch, I personally found them serviceable: it's just the story that does not quite hold up. Not a putrid movie and actually not badly paced, with enough mindless action to be not devoid of entertainment, but definitely deserving the underwhelmed-to-hostile reaction it got, especially as part of a franchise.
Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.
Suggested correction: Maybe a wrong move by High T but more like a character mistake rather than a movie mistake. High T was trying to scare the agents into overreacting to what was perceived as a high risk threat. Then it backfired on him but definitively non a plot hole.
I don't mind the proposed changes of category, or even a 'demotion' to Stupidity. But I say it's more of a Plot Hole by the definition used in the website; " Events or character decisions which only exist to benefit the plot, rather than making sense." The whole plot moves along thanks to a deliberate decision by the villain who literally fabricates evidence to implicate himself.
Sorry but it COULD make sense. We have 2 aliens from planet X (which is presumed to be a "hive" territory) that - at that point in the movie - are perceived as killers. It makes a lot of sense for HighT to reinforce in Agent H and Agent M the fear of an incoming invasion by waving the Hive scare flag in front of them. HighT could not have predicted at that point in time that the twins would say "we need that weapon for the hive" before being obliterated, Thus starting a doubt in H and M.
I fail to see why it makes sense for him to tip them off about the much larger intergalactic invasion when he just needs to send them on a wild goose chase to buy himself time for the last part of the plan. He amply demonstrates that he can fake anything about their background. Or simply not fake anything at all;they have no Hive contamination, and so they are just refugees from a dead planet. Instead, he fakes evidence that implicates his faction and is caught hiding that forgery.
Maybe Stupidity is more appropriate.
Agent O: You really think a black suit is going to solve all your problems?
Agent M: No. But looks damn good on you.
Trivia: Early in pre-production, the film was going to be a humorous crossover between the "Men in Black" and "21 Jump Street" film franchises, featuring Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill having to go undercover in MIB. The working title was "MIB - 23." The idea was dropped, presumably due to its outlandishness.
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