"Men in Black: International" Has Everything But Jokes
They can do anything they want in visual effects now, but they can't write a funny script.
Will Smith made his last Men in Black film in 2012.
Since then, there have been lots of ideas for how to continue the franchise. The best idea was to recruit Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum from 21 Jump Street to become Men in Black. They couldn't work that out, but the idea of Men In Black lends itself to a new pair of agents having their own adventures. It wouldn't even preclude them from meeting Agents J (Will Smith) and K (Tommy Lee Jones) one day. Not the agents from Men in Black International, though. We don't ever want to see them again.
In 2016, Agents H (Chris Hemsworth) and High T (Liam Neeson) battled The Hive on top of the Eiffel Tower. Or rather, they're green screened into the scaffolding of the Eiffel Tower. 20 years ago, Molly saw her parents get neuralyzed, but she avoided the memory wipe herself and helped an adorable alien escape. She's spent her life looking for the Men in Black, and she'd be qualified as an adult (Tessa Thompson) if any of the government agencies like the FBI or CIA knew the Men in Black existed.
Molly's ambition could add to Men in Black: International a different dynamic than what J and K had. She finds the Men in Black herself and convinces them to make her Agent M. They can always neuralyze her if it doesn't work out. Then she impresses H and makes herself indispensable to him. In previous movies, Agent J mocked the whole operation, which worked for Will Smith, but M is a good role model to have in a 2019 Men in Black movie. Men In Black: International isn't really interested in M's ambition, and she and H just become generic buddy cops.
Men in Black International forgot to give H and M a dynamic. Oh, I just got that they're H & M. The movie doesn't play that up either. It's cast right; on paper, Chris Hemsworth and Tessa Thompson should work. But they're not playing off each other. Agents J and K were the basic clown and deadpan straight man, because that's a comedy formula for a reason.
Instead, H is smug and swaggery, which Hemsworth can certainly play, but that's not a personality. Maybe if M kept up her ambition and got under H's skin, that would be something, but they ignore that once they're on the case. H razzes the alien Vungus (Kayvan Novak), but it's all made up insults about an alien physiology we've never seen before. How can we laugh about something they've just made up?
The only funny character is Pawny (Kumail Nanjiani), and he doesn't even show up until over an hour in. There are no zingers like, "I make this look good" or "It's raining black people." The name High T is a decent pun, and there are new celebrities identified as secret aliens, but you can only ride that joke so long. Agents M and O (Emma Thompson) have some amusing banter about the outdated gender norms of the name Men in Black, which almost goes somewhere and feels like dialogue Thompson probably punched up herself. When she's not in the scene, the movie is on its own.
At least Men in Black: International delivers on the international part. The movie goes to New York, London, Paris, and Marrakesh. This is the longest Men in Black movie, and it feels as long as its hour and 54-minute runtime. It tries to lead you to suspect H for so long when it's totally obvious which character you should really suspect.
They can do anything they want in visual effects now, but they can't write a funny script. Men in Black: International is loaded with more aliens, MIB gadgets, and firepower, but there aren't any jokes. When you don't have Will Smith to make up funny lines, you have to actually give the actors funny things to say.
In 1997, Men in Black had to be selective with its visual effects, so we probably only got to see the best ideas make it to screen. Now that Men in Black: International can have as many visual effects as a Marvel movie, it goes to show that Men in Black wasn't ever supposed to be a tentpole action franchise. Men in Black: International has a lot more set pieces, but none are anything we haven't seen before.
H and M have a gunfight with Alien Twins (Les Twins Laurent and Larry Bourgeois) wherein they shoot bigger guns, but it's the same destruction of a city block we see in every movie. H has a hand-to-hand fight in which he does the same flip over his opponent that every action hero does in every mainstream movie. They have high speed vehicular chases on green screens like the speeder bike chase in Return of the Jedi. Men in Black: International has nothing to add to the action/sci-fi genre.
What the Men in Black franchise had was comedy. It doesn't take a big budget to write comedy, but it's probably harder work. If Men in Black: International thought it could distract us from the lack of jokes, it was wrong. We noticed that we weren't laughing.
Liam Neeson Admits to Wanting to Kill a "Black Bastard" in an Act of Revenge
The interview went in an unexpected direction.
Liam Neeson
Thoughts and prayers to Liam Neeson's publicist who is undoubtedly dealing with the consequences of Neeson's wildly problematic Independentinterview. The purpose of the interview was to discuss Neeson's upcoming movie Cold Pursuit, an action thriller (obviously) about a snow plow driver who goes after the drug dealers he believes killed his son. When the interview turned to the subject of revenge, a clear theme in the movie, Neeson said, "There's something primal – God forbid you've ever had a member of your family hurt under criminal conditions," he continues. "I'll tell you a story. This is true."
He then went on to relate a tale from many years ago, when he learned that a woman close to him had been raped. All she knew about her attacker was that he was a black man, leading Neeson to roam the streets for weeks afterwards, carrying a "cosh" (a stick-like weapon) hoping to meet a man who fit the description, get into a fight with him and, ultimately, kill him.
"She handled the situation of the rape in the most extraordinary way." He said, "But my immediate reaction was...I asked, did she know who it was? No. What colour were they? She said it was a black person."
He continued, "I went up and down areas with a cosh, hoping I'd be approached by somebody – I'm ashamed to say that – and I did it for maybe a week, hoping some [Neeson gestures air quotes with his fingers] 'black bastard' would come out of a pub and have a go at me about something, you know? So that I could kill him." At this juncture, we recommend picturing the faces of the journalist who was expecting a tepid movie promotion interview, and Liam Neeson's costar, Tom Bateman, who was also present but likely recognized that nothing he could say for the remainder of the interview would have any consequence whatsoever.
Neeson went on, "It took me a week, maybe a week and a half, to go through that. She would say, 'Where are you going?' and I would say, 'I'm just going out for a walk.' You know? 'What's wrong?' 'No no, nothing's wrong.' It was horrible, horrible, when I think back, that I did that," he says. "And I've never admitted that, and I'm saying it to a journalist. God forbid."
Echoing the primary sentiment of the world at this moment, Bateman said, "Holy shit."
But Neeson wasn't done yet, "It's awful. But I did learn a lesson from it, when I eventually thought, 'What the fuck are you doing,' you know?"
"I come from a society – I grew up in Northern Ireland in the Troubles – and, you know, I knew a couple of guys that died on hunger strike, and I had acquaintances who were very caught up in the Troubles, and I understand that need for revenge, but it just leads to more revenge, to more killing and more killing, and Northern Ireland's proof of that. All this stuff that's happening in the world, the violence, is proof of that, you know. But that primal need, I understand."
What was said in the remainder of the interview feels pretty irrelevant, given that Neeson had just admitted to once wanting to kill a "black blast are." While it's undoubtedly productive for white people to engage with and acknowledge their own implicit biases and past racist behavior in an effort to change for the better, this was not a harmless admission of past non-PC statements. This was an admission of plans to commit a hate crime, treated as though it was a harmless anecdote.
Yes, Neeson's intention in telling the story was clearly to acknowledge the poisonous nature of revenge, but the ease with which he shared it suggests a man who considered himself already forgiven by the public for his appalling confession. He told it as though it were relatable and understandable, using racially-charged language ("what color were they") but not necessarily acknowledging the obvious racist implications of the story. Even when he expressed regret for his intentions, he didn't specifically recognize the racism in his anger being aimed at any and all black men because they happened to share a skin tone with the man who assaulted his loved one. Instead, he ultimately related the story to the troubles of Ireland, a seemingly unrelated comparison. If Neeson's problematic interview shows us anything, it's that there is still a long way to go in terms of finding ways to have productive racial discourse. Acknowledged racism is not excused racism.
Brooke Ivey Johnson is a Brooklyn based writer, playwright, and human woman. To read more of her work visit her blog or follow her twitter @BrookeIJohnson.
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