MIB: Neuralize This! - A Men in Black Comedy Short

Sometimes, you just can’t get the staff.  When you work for MIB as a field agent, the main aim of the job is to protect humanity from any threat posed by aliens – but also to provide refuge for any seeking to immigrate or to seek asylum.  The two agents at the heart of MIB: Neuralize This! get it wrong on virtually every conceivable level… but the viewer has a lot of fun on the way.

The production values here are pretty high – it’s sometimes difficult to distinguish this fan film from the real thing.  It has an alien incident, action, lots of action (it starts in media res, so you need to understand the Men in Black universe to an extent) and, most importantly for me, tight plotting and scripting.  It’s a self-contained MIB incident with a very satisfying end (well, not for the alien, perhaps).  But the fact that it is so well self-contained – a MIB vignette as it were – is its greatest strength, though hats off to director and writer Martin Sofiedal for the atmosphere, VFX and pace of this seven minute short.  There is no self-indulgence here, which can be a flaw of so many fam-made homages.

 A mention for the cast, too.  Despite the brevity of the film, they all bring their characters to life in this short time.  The agents seem to know each other’s shortcomings well, which might indicate that they have worked together for quite a while – although I am not entirely convinced that their success rates will have them on the office leaderboard.  You might feel sorry for the alien, who isn’t given much of a chance to explain itself, but perhaps the human witnesses get the rawest deal – watch the film to see why!

(This short is not affiliated with Sony or the official Men in Black franchise. It is a not-for-profit fan film.)  Get yourself a cuppa, press play below and have a fun seven minutes.