Starring Chris Hemsworth, Tessa Thompson, Liam Neeson, Emma Thompson, Rafe Spall, Kumail Nanjiani, Larry Bourgeois, Laurent Bourgeois, Rebecca Ferguson

Directed by F. Gary Gray

Out now

The newly recruited Agent M (Thompson) is brilliant, driven and inexperienced. H (Hemsworth) is London Bureau’s finest. Or he was… Something is rotten in MiB, and H and M are about to find out just what it is.

The firs thing you need to know is this movie is fine. It’s fast, it’s funny, there’s some inventive action sequences. It’s a million miles from the barely functional toxic zombie people have been told it is.

The second thing you need to know is that this movie is not much more than fine. Legendarily complicated clashes with producers meant rewrites were so constant Hemsworth and Thompson hired their own dialogue writers. This was not a fun time, on set, for anyone. You can see the ghosts of the earlier, better scripts too. There’s a hint about how MiB is now just gladhanding aliens regardless of what they do. Another about how H has changed which has far more teeth than what we got. The MiB movies have always flirted with exploring issues surrounding immigration. International barely makes eye contact with those issues let alone strikes up a conversation. The script is safe, flat, committee’d to a fine sheen that shows you your face, smiling. But never much more.

Don’t get me wrong, there is a lot to enjoy here. Not the least of which is Thompson and Hemsworth who both signed onto a better movie than they ended up in. Hemsworth soft pedals a little here but his amiable and slightly rubbish teddy bear routine works very well as ever. Thompson’s brilliant, driven M is the calm, focused version of J the 21st century demands. She’s endlessly smart, not entirely worldly but the butt of no one’s joke. Nanjani impresses too as the tiny alien samurai who adopts M as his chosen Empress. Also fun, and given nowhere near enough to do are Larry and Laurent Bourgeois, legendary street dance duo known as Les Twins. They look and move like no one on Earth and that gives the villains a real snap and threat. For a while. Oh, Rebecca Ferguson is immensely good fun too as H’s former girlfriend and full time crime boss.

If I sound scattered on this, then I am. There’s a lot to enjoy in MiB International but it’s all fits and starts. The central McGuffin is nicely handled and F. Gary Grey does a great job of keeping things moving but never much more.

Verdict: The good news is that the endless production issues haven’t made a bad movie. They’ve just made a thoroughly average movie out of something that deserved so much more. 6/10

Alasdair Stuart