REVIEW: Men in Black 3

Men in Black 3 (2012): Dir. Barry Sonnenfeld. Written by: Etan Cohen. Based on the graphic The Men in Black, written by Lowell Cunningham. Starring: Will Smith, Tommy Lee Jones, Josh Brolin, Jemaine Clement, Michael Stuhlbarg and Emma Thompson. Rated PG-13 (Blue, green and orange blood). Running time: 106 minutes.

2 ½ stars (out of four)

Sure, the world didn’t need a Men in Black 3 but it exists and, hey, look at that: it’s not bad. It’s not as good as the first Men in Black, an entertaining movie that featured Will Smith at the peak of his charm and likability and had a clever, original concept (always the best thing going for it). I can recall almost nothing about Men in Black II except that I was excited entering the theater and disappointed exiting the theater. I was twelve at the time with much lower standards and expectations than I have today, so that’s saying something. I imagine my twelve-year-old self would have been much happier leaving Men in Black 3, a slight but enjoyable sequel.

The movie opens with a jailbreak from LunarMax (you know, the secret prison we built in one of the Moon’s craters to house alien prisoners). The escapee is Boris the Animal (though he prefers just Boris), a burly Boglodite with a biker beard and a nasty overbite (an unrecognizable Jemaine Clement chewing the scenery). Boris has been imprisoned for more than forty years after the Men in Black, top-secret government protectors of Earth and all-around super-agents, prevented him from destroying the planet in 1969.

Our very own Agent K (Tommy Lee Jones) was the one who put him away so naturally Boris’s first plan of action is to exact revenge. But he doesn’t just want to kill K. Boris also lost his left arm in his scuffle with K and he plans to get it back by time-traveling to 1969 and killing K before the arm is severed. (Now seems as good a time as any to say that Boris’s right hand opens up and is home to spider that shoots deadly spikes. If you get a kick out of that sort of thing in moves – I know I did when I was twelve – it’s pretty neat.)

Meanwhile, Boris’s Boglodite buddies in the present seek to finish what they started years earlier: to demolish Earth. This leaves K’s partner, Agent J (Will Smith), to go back in time too and kill both present day-Boris and 1969-Boris to ensure that this whole messy affair never happens at all. If you find yourself already struggling to keep track of everything, worry not. Men in Black 3 does not take its temporal tampering very seriously and the pressing dramatic question boils down to the usual: Can J defeat the bad guy in time to save the day?

An essential ingredient in the previous Men in Black movies was the comedic chemistry between Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones, with Mr. Jones playing straight man to Mr. Smith’s fast-talking wisecracking. Though Mr. Jones is mostly absent in this film, replacing him is Josh Brolin, who plays the young Agent K and does a fine Tommy Lee Jones impression. His presence helps to freshen up a stale formula and give Will Smith (whose shtick has long ago gotten old) someone new to play off of.

Most of the early gags fall flat on their face – the jokes during a visit to a Chinese restaurant are at best corny and at worst racist – but the movie picks up as it goes along, finding its stride in the 1960’s scenes. The retro MIB headquarters is filled with chattering typists with bob haircuts and aliens wearing big bubble helmets that recall the sci-fi imagery of the era. And there are some clever bits regarding MIB technology still in development. (An early version of the pocket-sized neuralyzer memory-eraser fills an entire room.) I also particularly enjoyed Griffin (Michael Stuhlbarg), a fifth-dimensional being capable of seeing all possible realities before the real one plays out.

The studio was no doubt trying to get this movie made for years and one gets the impression that a dozen or more scripts floated past the desks of Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones before they settled on one that was good enough. And indeed, Men in Black 3 is just that: good enough. I find it hard to imagine this working a fourth time around but, then again, that’s exactly what I was saying about this movie a few months ago, so I suppose you never know.

- Steve Avigliano, 6/2/12