BACK IN BLACK
MEN IN BLACK: INTERNATIONAL (12A) ★★ ★★★
SEVEN years after Barry Sonnenfeld masterminded a lacklustre third instalment of the Men In Black series, F Gary Gray replaces him in the director’s chair for Men In Black: International, the first in the franchise not to feature Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones.
Instead, Liam Hemsworth and Tessa Thompson – Thor and Valkyrie in Avengers: Endgame, respectively take up the mantle as sharply suited protectors of our digitally-rendered galaxy.
The New York headquarters of MIB is infiltrated by call centre worker Molly (Thompson), who has been searching for extra-terrestrial life since a childhood close encounter with a cuddly alien.
She impresses Agent O (Emma Thompson), and is christened Agent M, and posted to the London office run by High T (Liam Neeson).
He partners the inexperienced American operative with his best man: Agent H (Hemsworth), to protect an otherworldly visitor called Vungus The Ugly.
An attempt on Vungus’ life by shape-shifting twins exposes a potential mole within MIB ranks.
Agents H and M embark on a globe-trotting quest for answers that pits them against jealous rival Agent C (Rafe Spall) and H’s old flame Riza (Rebecca Ferguson), a “merchant of murder” who deals arms from a fortified fortress off the coast of Naples.
The film festoons the screen with outlandish firepower, high-velocity chases and fantastical creatures, but all that expensive, shiny wrapping merely conceals a depressing lack of substance.