Men in Black 3 Review

Men in Black 3 Review
By Ryan Casey

Fifteen years since the sci-fi hit ‘Men in Black’ and ten years on from the un-inspiring sequel, Barry Sonnenfeld resumes his role as director, with Agent K (Tommy Lee Jones) and Agent J (Will Smith) donning the suits for the third instalment of a somewhat aged movie franchise. Despite the hype,  my expectations for this one were less out of this world and more down to earth.

An extremely volatile alien named Boris ‘The Animal’ (Jemaine Clement) escapes imprisonment and finds a way to travel back in time to the 1960s so he can murder Agent K as a young man, thus denying the events which lead to his incarceration. This one action drastically alters history and leaves Earth vulnerable to a catastrophic alien invasion.

Agent J is left no other alternative but to go back in time himself and team up with the younger Agent K (Josh Brolin) in an attempt to intercept Boris. With the survival of humanity and Earth itself at stake, failure is not an option for the Men in Black.

I’m not going to go over the top with my criticism of MIB 3, it is what it is, a tongue in cheek sci-fi comedy with a style which caters to the younger generation. However, it is within this style and the general premise of the movie that I hold my major gripe with MIB 3. I was a kid myself when MIB first made its appearance in 1997 and I loved it for what it was. Now I’m grown up, I feel no need to revisit the characters and discover their past. I feel today’s generation of children won’t care either. This falls short of ticking the boxes for fans of the original and I doubt it will pull in a new crowd either.

Performances are solid on the whole, notably Josh Brolin who builds a strong on screen chemistry with Will Smith and does a unbelievably convincing job as a young Tommy Lee Jones. Jermain Clement’s Boris the Animal is also an interesting addition to the MIB universe. MIB 3 sticks to tested comedy style that ensured the box office success of its predecessors, with several set pieces involving K and J interrogating humerous looking extra-terrestrials. Unfortunately whether it was scripted or improvised, genuine wit is few and far between, leaving a hefty void in the movies objective.

Despite my opinion of MIB3 being lack-luster and unnecessary, Simon found it more enjoyable. He was also a big fan of the original and finds MIB3 to be a refreshing re-visit to the characters with a lot more thought and creativity gone into this one than the terribly disappointing sequel. Apart  from MIB II’s hilarious Ballchinian. Some of the ideas in MIB3 where great such as the design of Boris the Animal, and the way in which the Men in Black headquarters in the 60′s reflects the science fiction of the time. Granted the film’s grasp on time travel has more holes in it than Swiss cheese and some of Hollywood’s finest writers seemed to have attended the ‘Looper’ school of disregarded time traveling but despite some infuriating plot mechanics the film is still overall enjoyable.

You’re not likely to encounter a more pointless conclusion to a film series than MIB 3. There are some genuinely entertaining moments and several inventive ideas that kept this installment fresh. However, I wouldn’t be adverse to Will Smith using his neutralizer (The flashy memory eraser stick) on me to wipe this mediocre adventure from my memory banks. Simon would rather he used it to erase the sequel!