Paula Griffin – Google

I really do not know how to review this movie other than to say that if you think this is aimed at the kids then you’re very much mistaken. Animation usually pops in the odd grown up reference to keep the parents from dozing off or resorting to playing Fortnite on the iPhone but this film is absolutely peppered with adult references. That and the casual chumminess treatment of The HRHs will definitely get those with expectations of royal sycophancy ladled on with a spoon are definitely going to be hot under the collar before too long... Target audience is way off the mark with perhaps the sort of middle class millennials who wear Corbyn for PM T-shirt’s mainly to embarrass Daddy at the golf club more suited to this after a long day of networking.

Somewhere between that lightbulb moment when someone suggested “What if Superman were a bad guy” during a more boring episode of Smallville & the opening scenes of this frankly predictable “horror” a delightful premise got lost in a confusing script that veers from frustrating to just plain daft. It relies heavily on a lot of Luton bus jump scenes and an excess of cheap claret both of which quickly lose any impact. Even a good cast fails to rescue things as you don’t really care for any of them after too long. At the end you are left wondering why the almost indestructible being is even bothering with them especially as his instructions are to “Take The World” but he seems content to spend his time knocking seven sorts of @*%# out of a small Kansas town.. 🤷‍♀️

Most of the ingredients are right but somehow MIBI just turns out flat as last night’s beer. Good cast with Hemsworth & Thompson showing the sort of chemistry that worked so well in the Thor movies but what is lacking here for starters is a sharp script that made past MIB so unique. Locations are wasted with Marrakech wasted with bog standard chases through the souks (compare & contrast with John Wick & the sumptuous scenes in Essaouria) and a Trip into a desert setting for about five minutes of screen time. But where it really falls down is the lack of a really tasty villain that the MIB can get their teeth into.

With Emma Thompson in the “lead” one might have expected more biting satire but whilst Late Night has a few tart comments on the sexual balance in light entertainment it really needed sharper teeth in that respect. At times the film threatens to veer off into more surreal territory but then turns back into more familiar tropes. It is rather apt then that at one point when the Thompson character is shown in her former life as a stand up comedienne that she appears to be trying to channel one of that genres finest talents, a comic genius who would have made the concept of this film so more poignant, so much more cutting.

After reading the reviews was expecting a modern reboot for the classic cop film noir but what we ended up with was a overlong, needlessly padded out standard stake out cop movie with nothing in the way of twists & a highly improbable “happy” ending. One of the keys signs that an audience is losing interest in a movie is the number of mobile phone screens that light up in the auditorium & it was barely half way through this tedium that the fireflies began sparking into life. Part of the art of these sort of films is caring when a character’s life is threatened or ended but even the introduction of the backstory for a hostage fails to do this. If the end all this movie does is serve to reinforce the Mel Gibson stereotype & Leave you wondering what better things you could have done with those 2 hours and 39 minutes.

Even without del Toro & Hellboy incarnate himself Ron Perlman this should be a decent effort at a reboot of the much loved characters given the involvement of Mike Mignola and some quality acting talent. Yet somehow it fails to impress, a curate’s egg of a concoction leaving you running back to the “originals” for reminder of how this should be presented. The script is clunky, the humour forced through a sieve rather than flowing naturally from the characters and the story a mishmash of British mythology including an Irish Merlin! Some scenes just don’t even make sense for example (potential spoiler alert) when a plaque is unleashed across Britain yet though it is reported on the news not long after Londoners are shown casually going their daily business before they are set upon by demons. And though the budget may have been less than the del Toro movies there might surely have been enough to produce monsters that didn’t hark back to the days of Ray Harryhausen.

Based on feedback of Jordan Peele debut outing I was looking forward to this but beyond the wonderfully creepy opening it’s pretty much downhill from there on in. The trailer rather spoils the shock of the main premise of the film as it descends into a bog standard house invasion film and misses to chance to fire off some well aimed shots at racially motivated expectations imposed upon adults & children. The creation of the “Us” people never seems to be really explained nor do a variety of other plot holes which I Leave for others to divulge should they wish to. The dark humour one expects is sadly lacking from the script; shame really given the quality of the cast including the two lead youngsters both of whom I expect to see a lot more of in the future.

I entered the cinema with dread based on comments here and elsewhere which presumably had scared off other patrons as I was alone in the auditorium. Based on the light hearted trailers I was not expecting the refugee centred opening which was a tad underdone in my book. After several moments in opening this film rather infectiously grows on you and though still as wonky as any MDF school play set you find it’s heart in the place . If you don’t shed a tear or two by the end then your heart is smaller than any Christmas Grinch.