It does appear from a lot of reviews that Men in Black: International was not the most well-loved movie to come out in 2019, even if it was promoting a more ‘woke’ idea that women were more important in the MIB than had originally been depicted. In fact, this almost feels as though it could have happened with Will Smith and Linda Fiorentino had she not experienced a very real scheduling conflict. There was actually a rumor going around that Tommy Lee Jones didn’t want to work with her as Mike McGranaghan of Screenrant can attest to and even expand on. The unfortunate fact is that Tessa Thompson has become something of a lightning rod among the many that are continually pushing for more inclusiveness and diversity in movies and in this one she had a chance to do something that might have been positive, but unfortunately it was presented in a movie franchise that had a lot of backtracking to do given that MIB 2 and 3 really weren’t as great as the first one. Had this movie come out after the first movie it feels as though it could have offered up a lot more and made a much presentation, but following after the initial trilogy it almost feels as though it needed to be its own movie without fully connecting to the trilogy and it definitely needed to do something that hadn’t been seen or conceptualized before. In other words, as Kay alluded to in the original movie, there’s always a threat to the earth just on the horizon, but so long as people don’t know about it they won’t care.
Pairing up Chris Hemsworth and Tessa Thompson again should have likely been able to rekindle a pairing that was great in Thor: Ragnarok because it allowed them to explore very popular and in some ways complex characters. This was more or less a chance for a female character to prove herself and a male character to act the fool, the action-packed and impressive fool at times, but still a fool that was more about comedic relief than anything. Dirk Libbey of CinemaBlend has more to say about the movie and why things went awry. As we keep leaning into this era where women are taking charge and assuming bigger and more prominent roles, which is great in many cases, there are bound to be movies such as this where the overkill when it comes to the strength of women starts to become a little too much to handle at times, and not because they’re that great, but because the roles tend to do the same thing that male roles have done for years, showing off in a way that’s kind of obnoxious and negates the whole point of being ‘woke’ or accepting of a woman’s place in the world. There have been plenty of movies at this point that have featured female leads that have been well done and have shown just how strong women really are and how capable they’ve been when it comes to taking the lead and making sure that they’re not taken advantage of, but this wasn’t one of them.
The whole notion of ‘anything you can do I can do better’ has become a motto that was brought up again in the 2010s and is already being overplayed in the 20s as we continue to eke into this decade a day at a time. This movie had a chance to do something great and be its own entity without getting too out of control or goofy and for all intents and purposes it was set to do that, and then the wheels started to come, metaphorically-speaking, as soon as it was released. Some might say that it started before the release when the snafu with Liam Neeson occurred, but all in all the movie did not live up to its predecessors, and that’s saying something since the last two movies weren’t really that great. That’s kind of like saying any Caddyshack movie made after the second one just couldn’t measure up, and while I happen to like the second movie, it’s very true that the first was the best. In this case with MIB that’s true as well since the whole idea of MIB was great when it came out since despite having seen science fiction stories galore and aliens in all shapes and sizes, the original still managed to wow a lot of people since it was a virtual overload of alien species and concepts that went far above the pay grade of Jay or Kay. Dusty Stowe of Screenrant has more to offer on this subject. The problem is that there’s not much else that could be done along the same lines if the producer was wanting to get the same feeling out of the story as the first one managed.
Honest Trailers and CinemaSins are both pretty brutal when it comes to pointing out inaccuracies and plot holes, but at the very least they mirror what a lot of fans tend to say about certain movies.
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