Nerdy Rotten Scoundrel: Film Review - MEN IN BLACK 3 ★★½☆☆☆

Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Film Review - MEN IN BLACK 3 ★★½☆☆☆

Men In Black 3 is simply and exactly what it says it is: the third Men In Black movie in the series. It's been ten years since MIB2 if you can believe that, and this latest entry at times feels like a run of the mill go-round for Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones.

As the story goes, its been 15 years since Jones' Agent K recruited Smith's Agent J into the super secret Men In Black alien task force. Sadly with this passage of time, we have to say RIP to some familiar MIB's. Our beloved Frank (the talking Pug) is no longer on the roster, or is Chief Zed (Rip Torn). Both absences are acknowledged, and are missed in this entry.

The plot? MIB arch enemy Boris The Animal (played by a snarling Jemaine Clement) escapes from the Moon's Lunar Max prison to exact revenge on Agent K, the man who not only captured him 40 years earlier, but also shot off his left arm. So he's still pretty pissed and sees fit to wipe K out from history by killing him in 1969 via a Hollywood no-frills time travel plot. Agent J is the only one who realizes K has been erased from the timeline and in turn travels back to the past to stop Boris of skewing history.

What's missing here is the truly fun banter between the day and night personalities of J and K. As written, their field partner relationship has sadly become stale after all these years. By the nature of the series run, Smith's Agent J is no longer the wet under the collar rookie, and that makes for far less fun with Jones' sorely veteran Agent K. But the plot remedy for that is to limit Jones' screen time and introduce us to young Agent K in 1969, played with dead-on uncanny confidence by Josh Brolin (and easily ranks up there with Rob Lowe's younger version of Robert Wagner's Number Two in Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me).

When dealing with the finer points of a time travel plot, screenwriters can either adhere to the rules with brain freeze inducing results (insert possible catastrophic universe ending paradoxes), or throw all thinking logic to the wind and just do it. The latter was the wise way to go here and no sci-fi mind games are put on the table.

Throughout the film, meaty back story details are teased and beg for some fleshing out, especially when we have gotten to know these characters since 1997, but get swept under the rug with the movie's brisk pace. While this can be a plus when many movies don't know when enough is enough, MIB3 jaunts from place to place like a film that was meant to be a chunk and change longer.

There were of course the reported script problems that lead to shutting down production halfway through filming, and although the story is in no way plagued with huge plot hole problems, it is a bit scant on needed rest stops by the time we reach the big showdown at Cape Canaveral as Apollo 11 is set for mankind's first manned moon landing.

Seven-time Academy Award winning make-up icon Rick Baker provides plenty of old school tangible eye candy visuals that help sell Boris The Animal and the various background creatures featured throughout the film. It's good to see that CGI FX haven't completely replaced old fashioned prosthetics. Danny Elfman returns to collaborate with MIB director Barry Sonnenfeld to once again deliver a rousing score that effectively helps to move the pacing of the film along even further.

Tommy Lee Jones has a surprisingly small role in the film. Older K for all intents and purposes merely bookends the film, which changes up the expected dynamic. But the addition of fun cameos by SNL's Bill Hader (as Andy Warhol), Emma Thompson and Alice Eve (as older and younger Agent O), and Will Arnett as J's partner in the alternate timeline, provide some solid extra support.

Men In Black 3 is a fun film, and yes it's in 3D, that sprints along and gets you harmlessly in and out of your theater seat in no time. But overall it doesn't quite pack the expected punch of a decade-in-the-making event film for our favorite sharp dressed alien investigators. Although it lacks a big 'must see' feel to it, Will Smith can be counted on here as Agent J to provide some light summer time travel adventure, and Brolin without question brings his A Game to K.