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Men in Black: International

Men in Black: International. F. Gary Gray. 2019.

I only vaguely remember the first movie. Or were there two? It was… Fresh Prince and that Tommy Lee guy?

So this is … not a reboot but a sequel with new characters? The concept is basically “Bond, but with funny aliens” so it seems well suited for a series.

Oh! And here Chris Hemsworth (one of the Chris people) does play a Bond parody.

It’s a bit frustrating to watch. Every scene is like “oh… I see what they want this scene to be”… It’s so close to being fun and exciting and cool, but it’s like everything is just slightly out of phase. I can’t even pinpoint what is wrong: The effects are great, Hemsworth is very Chris and Tessa Thompson is a great smartypants rookie, and the plot is satisfyingly over-complicated.

It’s just not … sharp? It needs to be turned up a bit? Is it made for the Chinese market? It’s produced by Tencent?

I like the deadly assassins. They’re super cool.

This movie is inexplicably boring.

Oh, here’s the explanation:

The film went through a troubled production due to frequent clashes between director Gray and producer Parkes, which started when the executive overseeing the project, Sony’s executive vice president of production David Beaubaire, exited the studio in the summer of 2018, and was not replaced. […] Parkes’ new script pages stripped away the early draft’s modern sensibilities, and were newly sent, daily, to Hemsworth and Thompson, who were both so confused that they hired their own dialogue writers. […] The studio tested two cuts — one put together by Gray, the other by Parkes — with the version by Parkes being chosen as the theatrical cut.

But perhaps Parkes isn’t the bad guy here:

Parkes and Gray also clashed over the color-correction process during post-production.

Because the colour grading looks great! Rich, deep and fresh colours.

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