Men In Black: International (2019)

How about some family friendly sci-fi a la Spielberg, with a somewhat darker tone than the earlier ones! And a strong female lead. And a Hemsworth like the one in Ghostbusters.

I'm not a big fan of that last bit, but at least they didn't really go all the way with this one. They kept it tasteful.

I'm all for strong female leads too, but when it's at the expense of man... feels like feminism is taking over. I'm not a fan. That's not how I like my action movie served.

I'm also not a fan of how they're adding in more and more of these aliens more for cuteness or comedy than for anything else.

Where's the creativity gone? Where's the homage to nature, in all its great unpredictability, both in terms of beautiful and in terms of disturbing? There's too little of the latter. Everything feels either intentionally disfigured or intentionally aestheticized - but I guess when females aren't allowed to look sexy enough they'll opt for that instead. Something has to look good. Switch up the audience. Lose your fanbase. Go future.

I may be sounding bitter and chauvinistic here, but I feel like:

A.) Movie preferences differ depending on gender, and the gender-preferences of this particular movie franchise seem to have switched according to gender preference, and
B.) I don't like the male belittling that's going on in popular culture these days. Too often.

The thing is: movies like this aren't even directed by females, and as such I don't think this is what the majority of either gender really wants - it's a stereotype desire by the male director trying to appeal to the opposite gender, and I think it'll all go as wrong with this trend as things did with PlayGirl when they totally flipped their intended audience - despite complaints from the (in their case) board of female directors.

The ending's somewhat predictable too, but pompous, and for a moment also inexplicably eerie. That thing about the repeating thing about the repeating thing.

Despite all that ranting above: I like this. I love the creepy vibe this has going compared to the old ones, the super-cool-high-tech weaponry, the aliens (of course - why else would I be watching), and the chemistry the main two have going on.

I love it all. I just feel like they could tone certain things down a bit, and not just jump on bandwagons that'll hurt them in the long run.

Compared to the earliest segments I don't see this one ever becoming a cult classic. And that's why. It's not because it wasn't a great movie in all other regards.

 rated 4/5: fo shizzle