Men in Black 3: rating:
****/*****, or 8/10
In the
midst of all the super hero action bombarding our cinemas this
summer, you'd almost forget there's more to comic book movie
adaptations than just superhumans epically fighting each other.
However, just because super heroes are doing extremely well at the
box-office, doesn't mean the Hollywood studios have given up on other
type of comic book movies, especially when reinterpreting such comics
for the big screen did very well financially for them in the past.
Therefore, after “only” ten years of neglect, the Men in Black
are finally back to once again protect us against the worst scum of
the universe. Their last film turned out to be one of the worst
sequels in recent history, almost ruining the franchise as a whole
due to bad writing, bad chemistry between the lead actors and most of
all, embarrasingly bad jokes, so this time their mission is to prove
to the audience once again why we do want to watch their secret
missions guarding us against extra-terrestrial violence. Fortunately,
and surprisingly after a decade of inactivity, they succeed, making
us fondly remember the first film and largely forgetting the debacle
that was their second adventure.
Warning!
Here be spoilers! Unlike the previous films, Men in Black 3
does not open in medias res during one of the coolest secret
government agency's missions, or even on this planet, but instead
witnesses a pretty nifty prison break on the moon's maximum security
prison for dangerous aliens. It makes sense extra-terrestrial inmates
are indeed locked up extra Terra, but apparently it would have
been a more sensible move not to hire inapt, thick-headed, overweight
human guards to handle security, as they all get viciously killed
off, some in rather gruesome PG-13 ways, courtesy of the film's
central bad guy, the one-armed Boris the Animal (thanks to the FX
team an effectively scary and grotesque Jemaine Clement), who after
reclaiming his freedom sets off to kill Agent K (Tommy Lee Jones).
Mean while, to show a decent amount of time has passed between this
film and the dismal previous MIB installment, we are re-introduced to
Agents K and J (Will Smith), working closely together as partners,
instead of one learning the intricacies of the job from the other
like before. They're still not fully connecting emotionally, K being
grumpy and cynical, while J is overly energetic and possesses a
seemingly more complete range of human emotions, but such differences
are only a good thing for the audience, since it makes the characters
complete each other and play off one another perfectly, exactly as
was the case in the first film, but was so painfully lacking in the
second. And so the excellent chemistry between Jones and Smith is the
best thing to return, as well as the most surprising considering it
was absent last time, plus the two actors haven't worked together for
a decade, but undoubtedly rediscovered their ability to bounce back
witty dialogue and bizarrely funny gags between them with the help of
a script that actually contained witty dialogue and bizarrely funny
gags. It's a good thing the pair found each other again, since the
relationship between them is the driving factor in Men in Black
3's plot line.
After
spectacularly raiding a Chinese/alien restaurant for selling illegal
extra-terrestrial animals as food, which also is used to remind the
viewer just how well K and J work together on cases like these, K
receives word Boris has broken out of jail, puzzling J as to what the
deal is between them and K of course withholding information from him
since it's not his damn business. Next day, J returns to the office
only to find K missing and none of their colleagues remembering their
top agents ever working together. Turns out Boris travelled back in
time to successfully murder K and change history, so his people, the
Boglodites, a dangerous parasitic race of aliens scouring planet
after planet and killing all life in the process, can conquer Earth
in the present after all, instead of being doomed to extinction
thanks to K foiling their evil schemes in the past. With the invasion
starting, J has no choice but to time-jump after Boris to 1969 in
order to save his partner, and the future of planet Earth.
Introducing time travel into a franchise that never seemed to revolve
around it previously is often a bad sign (I can think of a TV show
that did pretty good until messing with time proved to be the first
stage in its undoing, as well as a beloved Sci-Fi franchise which got
completely reset/screwed over because time travel offered just such
an irresistibly easy cop-out solution), but in the case of Men in
Black 3, it's more like an added bonus, since it opens up the
possibility for having J and a younger K (now played by Josh Brolin)
teaming up to save the future, making their relationship feel fresh,
familiar and funny all at once.
Brolin proves to be the perfect casting
choice for the role of replacing Jones for most of the movie, having
skillfully copied his accent, mannerisms and natural charm, and thus
pulling off this less experienced but more human K both fully
convincingly and compellingly. Plus, Smith and Brolin prove as good a
combination of acting and action talent as Smith and Jones did, while
keeping the existing levels of humour and character compatibility
intact. Thanks to Brolin, who also cleverly uses this opportunity to
remind us why he's often called one of the most acclaimed American
actors at this moment, we don't miss Jones for a second, because
we're totally buying he is Jones. Also, because of the now minimal
age difference between the two characters, K and J are finally on a
believably equal level, both of them knowing things the other does
not and actually sharing them, instead of the much older K supplying
all the knowledge, and J most of the resulting action, while the
former keeps important stuff to himself for the latter (and the
audience) to figure out.
Aside
from reinvigorating the K & J relationship, the plot also
utilizes the chance for laughs offered by the fish-out-of-water
element of a guy from the present visiting the odd world of the past,
though it does not make as much use of this opportunity as one would
have expected, appropriating the date of July 1969 mostly for plot
reasons because of the Apollo 11 mission to the Moon, which does not
allow the film to linger too much on other, more cultural events of
the same era which would have made for great comedic moments.
Fortunately the jokes that do jump at this occasion work well,
incuding older incarnations of MIB technology being of elephantine
proportions compared to Smith's pocket size equipment, or Andy Warhol
revealed to be a MIB agent who's tired of his own visual art and
requesting to be allowed to fake his own death to get away from it.
Most of the best temporally related jokes though are claimed by the
alien Griffin (Michael Stuhlbarg in a hilarious role), a survivor of
the previous Boglodite act of genocide who offers the Men in Black a
device to protect Earth from the imminent invasion, and, as a
five-dimensional entity in disguise (i.e., a silly hat), can foresee
any and all possible futures, making him ramble on and on about the
various possible outcomes and the unlikeliest random elements
effecting them.
Armed
with Griffin's plethora of foreshadowings, K and J set out to deploy
his device (by attaching it to the Apollo 11 so it can create a
safety net around the planet) and defeat Boris, of which there are
now two, the one from the present (that is, 1969) and the one from
the future (don't worry, the time travel does not lead to overly
complicated situations but remains fairly straightforward, which also
works only in the movie's favour). The existence of two Borises
simultaneously, both of them hating the other for what they perceive
to be their weaknesses, could also have used more fleshing out,
making the threat feel more real since future Boris knows exactly
what will transpire and could steer past Boris away from his own
mistakes, while both MIB agents are not fully aware of the precise
order of happenings due to Griffin's mental incoherence; the plot
however, fails to fully capitalize on this chance and has each Boris
fighting a single MIB agent alone. At least the plot delivers some
stunning action scenes on top of a missile launch tower to make up
for this oversight, which is also deployed to make some good use of
the 3-D effects (yes, this summer blockbuster too is released in
3-D), though it's the time-jump scenes that provide the most
impressive displays of depth.
Overall,
Men in Black 3 offers everything Men in Black 2 did
not, the most important thing being the status of a worthy successor
to the (still superior) first installment in this franchise, despite
containing some minor plot imperfections. Director Barry Sonnenfeld,
responsible for all three films, redeems himself for his previous
failure, while Smith and Jones prove they can still work together to
great results if aided by a good script. Brolin only adds more depth
to their existing relationship by exploring it in more detail and
straying away from the previously used master-apprentice dynamic
between both characters. And at the same time, we get more aliens
(new species, but also some old fan favorites including the obnoxious
worm guys), more cool gadgets (like the much advertized gyro bikes)
and a lot of new jokes, most of them actually funny this time around.
Now, if we could only time-jump and erase Men in Black 2 from
history somehow, this franchise would have a much better overall
track record...
And now
back to superhumans epically fighting each other.
And
watch the trailer here:
