Month: May 2021

Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (Jay Roach, 1997) Review

Spoiler Warning: This discussion contains some spoilers. It could be an entire gag from a comedy or in-depth conversation concerning events in the second act.

Rating: 4 out of 5.
"Oh, smashing, groovy, yay capitalism."

Perhaps the greatest genre spoof film to ever be created, Mike Myers’ Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery is a simultaneous love letter to the campy spy capers of 60s James Bond, Peter Sellers and Alec Guinness; whilst also being the catalyst for the Craig Bond era after making a mockery of the typical Bond film structure. Its comedy works to this very day, with much of it ageing far better than one might expect; many of its most famous gags still generate a hefty laugh. I love this for so much more than its silly characters and absurdly nuanced references, but equally for its romantic nostalgia for the swinging 60s.

It’s actually a difficult film to write about without going on for hours about the different gags and references to Bondisms. For example, the very intentional placement of ex-Bond-girl Lois Chiles as the wife to a recently deceased henchman in one of the film’s more iconic moments. You’ve got the more overt physical resemblance to Blofeld or the totally believable Alotta Fagina side character who could be have been plucked out of any Roger Moore Bond film. The astute observations about evil supervillains not watching their nemeses perish and the resultant derailing of armageddon. The costume is brilliant throughout, most notably in the A Hard Day’s Night introductory section. The soundtrack, ranging from the incandescent Soul Bossa Nova to the ridiculous scene accompanying the Divinyls’ I Touch Myself, aids the parodic tone that the film is aiming for.

I love the ageing hipster dynamic in a 90s society most fervently known as a commercial whirlpool of Calvin Klein adverts and Friends. The free-love ideals, the lack of a Cold War, and the seismic shift in policies on drugs and sex are all lost on Powers for the majority of the text. It is his growth from that, whilst maintaining all of his ridiculous textual charms, that makes him such a compelling comedy character. Myers was born to play the role with the frankly unplaceable British accent, phallic-shaped body hair, and garish dance moves; Powers has transformed into one of the most iconic personalities in 20th-century comedy. Even the British barbs about him having bad teeth are all in good fun – the Prince Charles gag is one I had totally forgot about.

Has Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery aged a day? Yes, in truth. Some of it doesn’t look as good as it probably used to, but there are films as recent as 2016 that are more culturally out of touch than this movie. Iconic from top to bottom; there are a thousand lines and moments that I haven’t even brought up throughout this piece. Who does Number Two work for? A bad time to lose your head. One million dollars. I could go on and on. This is groovy, baby, and it is my bag.

Check out the soundtrack here:

Personal Shopper (Olivier Assayas, 2016) Review

Spoiler Warning: This discussion contains some spoilers. It could be an entire gag from a comedy or in-depth conversation concerning events in the second act.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.
"Is it just me?"

Personal Shopper is one of very few supernatural thrillers I have seen in my lifetime to get it right. I would argue, for the most part, that the supernatural subgenre has been most successful under the horror branch. Most supernatural thrillers go for the easy approach – popcorn audiences, jump scares and cheesy narrative conclusions. I found that through director Olivier Assayas and lead actress Kristen Stewart, Personal Shopper disrupted that trend.

It’s hardly a perfect film. However, it’s easily the most convincing performance on Stewart’s behalf, who, much like Robert Pattinson, has proceeded to make a real case for her acting ability following the Twilight saga. She nails the cold empty tone that the film wants to purvey, particularly in the doctor’s check-up scene and the closing moments. It can be difficult to create a likeable character without any real levity, but Stewart gets everything right here, and I found myself rooting for her whenever she was present. There are not many other performers to make note of, with the secondary role belonging to Stewart’s phone, which provides much of the anxious tension in the screenplay.

It brings in a contemporary element of horror in that respect. The fear of read receipts and typing bubbles on a mobile phone are a brilliant form of ramping up the tension. The binary opposition of a message left unreplied and receiving many texts in a matter of moments brings about two different types of unease. It’s a very intelligently put-together screenplay that knows precisely how to target its specific audience. It’s a good-looking film with strong cinematography and consistent editing choices whilst also nailing the production design for its luxurious Parisian setting.

Personal Shopper is great fun. I love the ending, which I understand was a point of contention amongst the critics at Cannes in 2016. I’m still impressed that this wasn’t an extremely derivative jump-scare fest and actually went out of its way to craft a narrative that suited its supernatural focus. A very commendable effort, and one that has convinced me to look into more of Assayas’ work and seek out more critically praised Kristen Stewart performances.

Taxi Driver (Martin Scorsese, 1976) Review

Spoiler Warning: This review features narrative spoilers throughout the text and goes into detail about the ending of the film.

Rating: 5 out of 5.
"There is no escape. I'm God's lonely man."

It has been around half a decade since I watched Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver and it was hardly in the perfect setting. So, when the opportunity arose to see this in a theatre, I leapt at the chance. Often regarded as his pièce de résistance, my memory was always fairly hazy when it came to the details. Yet now, there’s no doubt in mind that this is one of the greatest pieces of art ever captured on film.

What is there to be said that hasn’t already at this point? You can see Taxi Driver in a hundred other movies. Its impact is so incredible, so far-reaching that filmmakers (Todd Phillips cough) are still trying to recapture its magic today. Travis Bickle is one of the most recognisable, most iconic characters in film history and is always considered one of the best performances of all time. De Niro is incomparable in the leading role with an incredible intensity and ingrained loneliness, noticeable from the first frame of the movie. It’s one of those performances everybody should see at some point in their lives. Alongside him, you’ve got great turnouts from an early Jodie Foster performance, Albert Brooks and Harvey Keitel, who vanishes into his character in the very short amount of time provided to him. Primarily though, this is the De Niro-Scorsese show, immediately outshining their past collaboration in Mean Streets.

The screenplay is one of the best of all time. Schrader, in his drunken gun-crazed New Hollywood era, pens a story that lacks much focus for much of its runtime, preferring a deep character study to a more traditional three-act structure. According to form, much of Bickle’s anti-social isolation was autobiographical, and Schrader’s attention was on understanding why young men like himself opted to remain alone or didn’t understand social etiquette. The porno theatre is such a fantastic example of that. Bernard Herrmann’s score is one that I will certainly be listening to in the following weeks, with its incredible jazz elements contrasting its brash and striking single chord beats. The cinematography is beautiful, combining saturated neon colours and clever framing that means Taxi Driver is always a joy to look at. I love the camera panning away from Travis’ phone call with Betsy; the interplay between Travis and his reflection in the “you talkin’ to me” sequence; the over-the-head dolly in its closing moments, and almost anytime Scorsese and Chapman play with the placement of De Niro’s face in the frame.

The final act is where it’s at its best, for me. The culmination of Travis’ descent into political madness, before his shift to save Foster’s Iris from a brothel, is some of the best action I’ve ever seen. The sheer volume of blood that the final shootout has is Scorsese at his finest. The exploded hand, the spurting gunshot wound in the neck both happen so suddenly. Travis’ suicide attempts also feel like such a natural part of the scene that it almost feels strange to point them out. However, almost any other director would have made so much more of that moment. Scorsese knew, De Niro knew, Schrader knew, that wasn’t the right course of action for that moment. Instead, the close-up comes on his fake gunshots to the head, already drenched in blood. Those images are recognisable even from this very brief description. The final moments as either fantasy or cyclical result in this becoming one of the most perfectly executed, memorable finales to a classic piece of cinema I can think of.

All I’ve done here is point out brief flashes of cinematic history and notable artistry. There are a million touches throughout Taxi Driver in respect to character building, filmmaking practice, subversion of expectations, but this would turn into an essay. Everybody has seen this filthy depiction of New York, the mentally unstable Vietnam vet pushed into urban society, the misanthrope turned public hero somewhere along the way. If you haven’t seen it in Taxi Driver, then make that change because this is where all of those elements are shown at their best. It’s the film’s hugest compliment to say that this could be Scorsese’s best, and it could be De Niro’s. So glad that I finally got back to this.

Check out the soundtrack here:

Army of the Dead (Zack Snyder, 2021) Review

Spoiler Warning: This discussion contains some spoilers. It could be an entire gag from a comedy or in-depth conversation concerning events in the second act.

Rating: 2.5 out of 5.
"It's not a matter of think. It's a matter of is."

Zack Snyder’s Army of the Dead was always going to get a kick of popularity following the Snyder Cut debacle, with it being his next project on the release slate and his first directing credit outside the DCEU in a decade. I, myself, have never been Snyder’s biggest fan, but I was down to see him make something totally independent of existing IPs for once. Given his trademark gargantuan production scale and easily recognisable art style, it’s time he produced something without a devoted fanbase breathing down his neck.

Unfortunately, this does miss the mark for many of the reasons that Snyder’s other texts have failed in the past. The most pressing issue Army of the Dead has is its runtime, which is an excruciating 148 minutes; for a zombie-action-heist film, it’s far too much. It’s clear that just like Zack Snyder’s Justice League and Watchmen, Snyder simply doesn’t know when to stop filming or what to cut. Netflix’s totally hands-off approach may actually have been somewhat of a downfall for this film. There’s also a number of relationships clearly intended to be vital parts of the narrative that never grow beyond expositional. They also happen to be the primary way to connect the audience to the ensemble team, so outside of the few actors with the charisma and time provided to them, you don’t care about them. The focus is on the visuals, the graphic violence and the marketable idea rather than the story. It was always bound to fail.

However, there is an element of guilty-pleasureness to this text. I can’t help but look at a mutant white tiger zombie and have a smile on my face. Similarly, I can’t help but jump out of my seat when that same zombie tiger clamps around someone’s entire head and rips the skin clean from the body without a cut. That’s some gnarly shit, and it’s obviously the kind of stuff Snyder wants to be putting out there. Dave Bautista is the most entertaining performance on display, though he does ultimately dissolve down to the gruff father on the path to redemption for his kid archetype. Omari Hardwick and Matthias Schweighöfer have some fun moments. Otherwise, this cast is a bland catalogue of models, without any worthwhile writing to flesh them out as characters. The final act is a total mess that just continues to drag on and on, conclusion after conclusion that nobody asked for. It leaves a very sour taste on the film as a whole.

Army of the Dead has its highlights. It’s fantastic to see Zack Snyder, love him or hate him, get back to making films he’s passionate about with a studio backing his decisions. The opening credits of playful Las Vegas tropes being invaded by a zombie horde is a great introduction (even if it does carry on for too long). There’s something underneath the zombies-as-society analogy here too. I can’t look past this as an allegory for the 1% in the film’s constructed zombie ecosystem itself, but that is neither here nor there. If you’re in the mood for a somewhat non-sensical zombie shoot-them-up, this is one with major production value and a fun visual style to it.

Jay and Silent Bob Reboot (Kevin Smith, 2019) Review

Spoiler Warning:

Rating: 1.5 out of 5.
"I'm Jay, and this is my silent hetero-life-mate Silent Bob."

Jay and Silent Bob Reboot is a film that I desperately wanted to love. I would have taken liking it. But, this just isn’t it. It’s a dire attempt at a comedy from a filmmaker (who I love) that has not made a solid movie for a very long time now. This is the latest in a long line of sorry attempts to recapture the magic of Smith’s glory days. The truth is that this film is a rather sad compilation of bottom-of-the-barrel puns and references to actually well-executed 1990s texts like Clerks, Mallrats, Chasing Amy, and Dogma. I don’t know how the biggest Kevin Smith View Askewniverse fan can defend this heap of garbage.

I don’t really know where to begin here, other than pointing out that I’m not devastated that this was released. It hasn’t ruined Smith’s other movies for me, some of which do hold a special place in my heart. This feels like more of a catharsis for Smith himself by reinviting all of his famous friends to make weed jokes and crack wise about the 1990s after his major heart attack a few years ago. Good for him, and the best thing I can say is that one or two of those gags do land. I would argue that there’s only one fantastic scene in the entire film, featuring Ben Affleck, which has a couple of amusing lines and the smartest, most rewarding callbacks. Otherwise, this is a crash course in lazy writing.

I’m talking strictly comedy here, by the way. The plot is a total rehash of Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, which is pretty much the overarching joke of the entire film. Fair enough; it’s surface level, but this is intended to be a broad-strokes comedy. Why, then, are there beats for a laugh at the simple mention of the word Mallrats? Why is there an already outdated joke about The Shape of Water? What’s even going on here? It’s painful at times to see the man who wrote Clerks succumb to this level of writing. He replaces his dry, unwavering touch for sarcastic dialogue with a self-deprecating blandness that hundreds of people have written about him online already.

Beyond that, the comedy doesn’t even make sense much of the time. Jokes will swing from one topic to another and back again in the blink of an eye. Is it improv? Is it atrocious editing? I don’t think we’ll ever know. What I do know is that replacing Smith’s trademark obnoxious Star Wars references (which still filter through here) with a narcissistic indulgence on his own works misses so wide of the mark I cannot tell you. Add in an unhealthy dose of forced melodrama with a father-daughter relationship at the centre of the narrative, and et voila, you’ve got this mess.

The best compliment I have for Jay and Silent Bob Reboot is that it gets better as time goes on. The bar is low to start off with, no doubt, but the Affleck scene does add something that at least makes this worthwhile for major Kevin Smith fans. If you do not fall into that category, then avoid this like the plague. Not only will you not laugh, but you won’t even know what it is you’re meant to be laughing at. I wish there were more to it; I truly do. Anything Smith did in the 1990s is far more worthwhile than this. Snootchie bootchies.

Minari (Lee Isaac Chung, 2020) Review

Spoiler Warning: This discussion contains some spoilers. It could be an entire gag from a comedy or in-depth conversation concerning events in the second act.

Rating: 4 out of 5.
"They need to see me succeed at something for once."

It has been seven months since the last time I entered a cinema, another long hiatus due to the pandemic after the absence of the theatrical experience for the majority of 2020. It was my absolute pleasure to end that intermission with one of my most anticipated films of the year, Minari. Ever since this start getting huge plaudits last year on the other side of the pond, I was downright desperate to catch this. The A24 credits, the Oscar nominations (and win) would only explode that excitement further. I’m so incredibly relieved that my first return to the cinema was for such a reliably excellent film.

I genuinely don’t have anything negative to say about the film. It may not be the absolute best in its department for much, but it is in the conversation for every element of its composition. The blindingly mesmerising Emile Mosseri score is perhaps my favourite to come out of 2020. The twinkling piano keys simply never miss any scene they grace. I adore the screenplay; it persistently pits jubilation against devastation in a matter of minutes. It makes the smallest things seem like the biggest victory. Lee Issac Chung’s tender writing serves to highlight jubilant themes of familial love, risk and reward, as something more important than the American Dream that those emotions seek to find. He leaves the story of immigration as a vital part of the characterisation but refuses to make it the central focus. It’s an incredible balance of a story rarely executed well in American storytelling. It nails the motifs of immigrant marginalisation and the sentimentalisation of America (its land, its citizens, its culture) as seen rather than told. There is no awkward scene where one declares their love of a city. Isaac Chung and his actors could not have got this more right.

Isaac Chung also serves as the director, and alongside his cinematographer, Lachlan Milne serves up some of the tastiest frames of the last year. These images look so beautiful up on the big screen. I was never uninterested when watching this. Gorgeous for the entire two hours this runs. Every single actor is perfect. Steven Yeun finally gets to spread his wings in a lead role with an excellent screenplay; I hope this means we’ll see him get more opportunities because, based on this, I’m up for whatever he signs on to next. Han Yeri, Will Patton and Noel Kate Cho are all similarly strong across the board, elevating any scene, whether it be comedic or deadly dramatic. A lot of these scenes call on the actors to get it right, and they never fail. Alan Kim provides one of the greatest child performances I’ve seen in many years, and Youn Yuh-jung was just as outstanding as the reports say she is. I can’t really put it into words: you’ve just got to see it for yourself.

Minari hits the sweet spot. It never leans into its heavier themes to the point of debate but rather lets them mould our understanding of its characters. My thoughts instantly run towards the religious elements of the story in that respect or the health of David. They are simply parts of the plot that we can appreciate more as time goes on. Minari is masterfully constructed, undoubtedly one of my 2020 favourites. Worthy of the big screen, too, if you can catch it before it leaves in the UK.

Check out the soundtrack here:

One from the Heart (Francis Ford Coppola, 1982) Review

Spoiler Warning: This discussion contains some spoilers. It could be an entire gag from a comedy or in-depth conversation concerning events in the second act.

Rating: 3 out of 5.
"If I could sing, I'd sing."

I’ve been eager to get around to one of Francis Ford Coppola’s lesser remarked artworks. It was pretty much all The Godfather and Apocalypse Now to this point. However, One from the Heart is rather infamous in the Coppola timeline because it’s the project that finally derailed the train. Coppola has admitted that almost all of his 1980s and 1990s work was done to pay off the debt that this film incurred. I had to see why.

I think a lot of it has to come down to the Zoetrope Studios dilemma, wherein Coppola made the bold decision to shoot the film in its entirety on his new studio backlot, using sets only. The final product is a frankly remarkable looking, sounding, feeling beast that just so happened to shoot the budget up some 900%. It likely didn’t help that this came off the back of maybe the most troubled production of all time, Apocalypse Now. That one turned out to be a masterpiece. One from the Heart struggles a little more.

As I say, this looks incredible. Coppola always has a vision, and his neon-Technicolour-dreamscape Las Vegas strip is yet another to be fully realised here. The blinding signs of the clubs, the saturation of frames in specific colours make so many scenes feel like a spectacle. The grandiose musicality that punctuates many scenes gives it a seriously 1940s Broadway musical vibe that nicely blends into the setting, and I find its final act to be a near-flawless piece of character-driven storytelling. Yet, I’m still relatively disappointed with the overall outcome of Coppola’s first attempt to become a fully autonomous auteur-studio-artist.

The first act did absolutely nothing for me, with performances that hardly met up to the grounded, squalid domestic setting that acts as the backdrop for a lovers’ row. The biggest issue, then, is that most of the narrative following the first act relies entirely on the relationship between Frannie and Hank – whether you’d like to see them reconvene or explore other options. However, for me, it’s all very superficial, and there’s nothing beneath it.

When it comes to One from the Heart, you can sign me up for the mesmerising visuals, playfulness around Broadway musicality and bold Francis Ford Coppola decisions. I can take it or leave it when it comes to the rest. I find the story behind this far, far, far more engrossing and exciting than the film itself. A shame, but it’s fun to see Coppola doing something very outside-the-box, away from the structured brilliance of his more celebrated texts.

The Doors (Oliver Stone, 1991) Review

Spoiler Warning: This discussion contains some spoilers. It could be an entire gag from a comedy or in-depth conversation concerning events in the second act.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.
"I am the Lizard King. I can do anything. Come on, raise your hands if you understand."

The Doors is a film that I was relatively hesitant to watch, despite my love for the band. My personal attachment to Jim Morrison has always been a strictly positive one, and I was aware that this might not follow such a trajectory. I’m glad I watched it in the end, primarily for Val Kilmer’s portrayal of Morrison, but I wouldn’t necessarily say that the rest of the film possesses the same quality.

It’s best to start with the obvious. The music was always going to be superb, with a strong collection of The Doors’ greatest hits, but also some of Morrison’s lesser-known spoken word works and musical motifs from the likes of The Velvet Underground. It sets the mood for the era and, despite some seemingly questionable transitions from song to song, does a good job of showcasing the talent of Morrison, Manzarek, Krieger and Densmore. The most convincing element of the entire text is Kilmer as Morrison, who evaporates into the man that was, emulating his singing style pretty much perfectly. The mannerisms are spot on, especially during the live sequences and the photography shoot – capturing the Shaman spirit that Oliver Stone desperately wants to highlight.

From there, everything else is a little uncertain. The screenplay can’t work. It falls into the Bohemian Rhapsody trap of trying to recreate the entire life of a person larger than themselves. Yes, it may do it miles better than Bohemian, but this needed to choose an era like the explosion of the debut album or Morrison’s famous final few years. This can’t make that call and does both to a decent standard with shining moments when a more focused approach could have made this one of the all-time great dramatisations of a music icon. Instead, this plays like a series of highly-produced scenes woven together with some bland transitions. It’s a struggle. The fact that Oliver Stone can’t make it work almost proves that nobody could have.

That being said, there are some incredible moments here that almost made me appreciate the mythos of Jim Morrison a little bit more. Fabricated or not, scenes, like Nico giving Morrison head in an elevator whilst inhaling poppers or drinking blood from a goblet, are images that are so absurd, so impossible to believe if it were pretty much anyone else but Jim Morrison involved. It’s the right category of ridiculous entertainment. The costumes are all spectacular, the sets just as incredible. The constant use of drugs and psychedelic imagery is very fun, for the most part. I like most of the performances: Meg Ryan has an entertaining turn for the most part, and it’s always fun to see Kyle MacLachlan do something other than David Lynch projects.

I can’t get over the screenplay, though. The focus is almost entirely on Morrison, and as a result, the rest of The Doors fall to the wayside, even though they are titular characters. The relationships between the bandmates are almost non-existent, so it’s meaningless when the impending fall-out comes. It skips over periods of time far too nonchalantly for my liking. It’s messy. Everything about me wants to love this movie, and huge sections of it are right up my alley. However, if someone were to watch this without a prior relationship to the band or Morrison, this would be a really confusing, likely boring watch. It’s unforgivable when The Doors are probably one of the greatest bands that will ever do it.

The Doors is a mixed bag. The filmmakers made poor decisions from the outset that prevented this from ever firing on all cylinders. Yet, there’s more than enough here to make this a worthwhile watch, especially if you’re a fan of Jim Morrison and the rest of The Doors. I wish there were just a little more restraint here. The final moments are spellbinding; the first thirty minutes are a complete miss. There’s plenty to cut and plenty more that’s priceless. I can’t make my mind up about this one even now. Morrison is Lizard. Kilmer is King. People Are Strange. This film is completely insane.

Check out the soundtrack here:

The Woman in the Window (Joe Wright, 2021) Review

Spoiler Warning: This discussion contains some spoilers. It could be an entire gag from a comedy or in-depth conversation concerning events in the second act.

Rating: 1.5 out of 5.
"I'm not prepared for vistors."

Joe Wright’s The Woman in the Window is a 102-minute slog with a series of moments where you’ll be forced to ask, “what are you, [insert incredible actor’s name here] doing in this Netflix money sink?” This is just a complete waste of time, with the few precious moments of beautiful cinematography tarred by an incoherent screenplay and a lack of characters to care about.

The cast includes Amy Adams, who deserves better; Gary Oldman and Julianne Moore, who should both know better; Anthony Mackie and Jennifer Jason Leigh, whose appearances are so brief it’s easy to forget they were even in the film, and Wyatt Russell and Brian Tyree Henry, who are the best of the lot. It doesn’t change the fact that these performers, who have all put in fantastic work over the years, are working on a screenplay that attempts to reimagine Hitchcock’s Rear Window, and fails so monumentally that it becomes a narrative disaster before the third act even attempts to wrap up its strangeness. Beyond that, it does not help that as the third act begins, a shocking new narrative twist exposes this as one of those films so confusing it becomes stupid and destroys any remaining interest the final moments may still contain.

The Woman in the Window is just another one of those thriller movies lacking the basic fundamentals of character work and coherent storytelling to ever function as a winding, twisted mystery. The visuals aren’t interesting enough to make this a worthwhile watch. The best comparison I can think of would be something like Malcolm and Marie, which has numerous notable flaws in its writing that become offset by the visual beauty and bold voice behind the camera. This doesn’t ever really have that. I’ll have forgotten everything about it by the end of the week.

Men in Black: International (F. Gary Gray, 2019) Review

Spoiler Warning: This discussion contains some spoilers. It could be an entire gag from a comedy or in-depth conversation concerning events in the second act.

Rating: 1.5 out of 5.
"The universe has a way of leading you to where you're supposed to be, at the moment you're supposed to be there."

Potentially the most disappointing summer blockbuster in recent memory, you can practically see Sony’s eyes lighting up at the prospect of a recognised billion-dollar franchise to abuse. Yet, Men in Black: International bombed at the box office, and with good reason, because it’s a soulless project that makes wrong decisions at every turn.

I think the most distressing thing about MiB: International is that its eponymous franchise isn’t all that spectacular. Sonnenfeld’s original is the only excellent film of the bunch, with a masterful buddy-fictional-cop pairing of Will Smith’s innate charisma and Tommy Lee Jones’ dry cynicism. The second and third entries are either outright bad or average at best. Yet, somehow, International manages to be the worst of the bunch, competing with Men in Black II‘s dreadful writing and horrendously managed comedy. It’s not the highest bar to clear, and with the talent both behind the camera (F. Gary Gray, the most notable) and in front of it, this shouldn’t have faltered as much as it did.

Then comes the pairing of Chris Hemsworth and Tessa Thompson, one that appears to be a dynamic one from the outside. They’ve had great chemistry before in Thor: Ragnarok and both have worked well independently in a broad range of genres. Both deserve better, particularly Thompson, who was more of a gamble than the inherently bankable Chris Hemsworth. These two are so bland here, lacking any substantial character arc between them, devoid of chemistry and bereft of any genuinely funny dialogue. These components are the secret sauce in making a buddy film work; you can have a bland enough plot, but if the central buddy pairing doesn’t work, then your buddy movie is never going to lift off the ground. This is just one of those examples.

Men in Black: International is its own worst enemy. The script is total garbage, so despite its sound construction as a film, with the amount of money blasted into it, the direction and character design were never going to be its downfall. There’s so much wasted talent here, most notably Rebecca Ferguson and Emma Thompson. The best part of the film is Kumail Nanjiani’s pocket-sized alien companion Pawny, who even then isn’t a patch on Frank or the Worm Guys from the original trilogy. Throw in some unconvincing, underwritten antagonists and a predictable mole storyline that you can call the moment it’s mentioned, and you’ve got a total dud. Go watch something else, maybe Sorry to Bother You if you’re looking for a film to really showcase Tessa Thompson’s potential. Anything else really, otherwise it’s two hours you’ll never get back.