“You really think a black suit is going to solve all your problems?”

Justin’s rating: This movie is wearing an Edgar suit

Justin’s review: On the rare occasion that someone cares to ask me why I generally prefer to slum it in the cult movie section, I try — usually in vain — to convey my attraction to genuine imagination and creativity that skulks through the genre. A mere spark in such a film is often enough to warrant my attention, but on the rare occasion that it all comes together to make a truly amazing overlooked film? That’s pure bliss.

Or I could gesture with disdain at the piles of safe, predictable Hollywood dreck that are shoveled onto our laps every year. You know, the ones that never take risks. The ones that coast on name-brand recognition alone along with too much generic CGI. The ones that are always PG-13. The ones that are, y’know, fine and make a whole lot of money despite being overly bland and leaving no cultural footprint whatsoever.

You need a single example? Take Men in Black International as a blueprint.

It’s actually a little hard to remember that the original Men in Black was subversive and, yes, an actual risk when it dumped a lot of money into a quirky cross-genre flick based on a comic book. It was a good gamble, as the end result felt fresh and funny and wall-to-wall entertaining. The sequel was lazy garbage, then there was a pretty amazing late ’90s animated series, the second sequel ended up being surprisingly good, and then seven years later, the series went right back to lazy with a side of forgettable.

Aside from Frank the Pug, you shouldn’t look for any familiar faces in front of the camera*. No Will, no Tommy Lee, not even a Brolin or a Rip hanging around. Instead, they found out if Chris Hemsworth was shooting a Thor movie that week and snagged him during the break.

I actually liked the initial premise here, which is that an observant woman who had an encounter with aliens at a young age ends up tracking down the MIBs with the intent to join their ranks. This is Molly (Tessa Thompson, Thor Ragnarok), an earnest loner who becomes Agent M and partners up with Agent H (Hemsworth, Thor Ragnarok), a delinquent MIB who needs to find his motivation for the job once more.

The “International” part here indicates that we’re off to a different part of the world, as Agent M goes to Britain to see if Liam Neeson and Hemsworth can produce an authentic accent**. I guess there’s wiggle room to look at MIBs in other countries — some real Fantastic Beasts energy here — but it’s not like other countries had shadowy alien-encountering agents as part of their mythos. That’s our stupid thing, England! Get your own!

All of the usual Men in Black elements are here, including disguised aliens, disguised vehicles, and disguised locales. And big scifi guns. The aliens are fun, as usual (including a funny tiny one named Pawn), but everything else feels really generic, right down to a super-nasty extraterrestrial threat lurking in the background until the third act. CGI, CGI, occasionally witty jokes, a mole in the agency, blah blah, I miss the ’90s.

I’m not alone in deeply regretting that the strongly rumored 21 Jump Street crossover with Men in Black never happened, especially because it gave us this, this… [NEURAL FLASH] I’m sorry, what were we reviewing?

*Steven Spielberg and Barry Sonnenfield do some exec producing while Danny Elfman returned for the music, though.

**Haha no.

Intermission!

• Nobody likes Paris, apparently
• You have to have a lot of upper body strength to be a Man in Black
• “You mean accounting?”
• It’s Jimmy, the star of the tabloids!
• A face in the three-headed snake cage doesn’t look fun
• Why are movie antidotes always glowing and green
• The shoe aliens and the transforming subway car were pretty cool
• Donald Glover is an alien
• High T… ugh. That is an awful British MIB pun.
• “You look after puppies so well.”
• “It’s a fine line between club casual and saddest man on earth.”
• That car is a veritable arsenal
• The first movie cameo via painting
• Neuralization: “Is that your people’s answer to everything?”
• “Classic mole talk.”
• Beard aliens deserve some beatings
• “Kind of want to see if he goes through with this.”
• Agent C… agency… get it?
• “Are you suggesting we use a weaponized star for fun?”
• “I thought it tasted like a living beard.”
• Haha the tiny Thor hammer joke
• Ugh that “Men and Women in Black” thing, please no