Men in Black III User Reviews

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The Men In Black are back with their third installment, although from the past, into the future. While nostalgia and two hours of air-conditioned entertainment give this film more than enough reason for a viewing, the film merely offers the same, although enjoyable, franchise-related trappings, and with less embrace than the first two films.

Men In Black 3 takes opportunity of its franchise’s ten-year hiatus by pulling the storyline forty years into the past for the usual rough-and-tumble alien policing of Agents J (Will Smith) and K (Tommy Lee Jones). However, it seems that the dynamic friendship between J and K has diminished over the years.

As Agent K gets closer to retirement, he becomes even more surly and thick-skinned than ever, and Agent J is still unable to come to grips with how insane their occupation is. All of this, however, falls to the wayside as an old foe, the “unconventionally handsome” Boris the Animal, travels back in time to not only kill Agent K, but to allow his alien race to invade and conquer planet Earth.

These harrowing circumstances are treated with the popcorn bombast of a summer flick. Every aspect of the film’s trappings seems overdone in an exciting manner, including the abnormally grotesque life forms, the deus ex machina of a car that the agents drive in, and even the historical significance of the NASA moon launch. And the film’s temporal confusion does not revoke the franchise’s usual elements, including undercover aliens inhabiting the globe, an endless cache of copper-plated phasers, and the ever ready neutralizer, a handheld stun ray that erases current memories.

Although the film fly by the eyes of the audience in all of its overbloated glory, it cannot help but feel a little by-the-numbers. Even Smith, Jones, and newcomer Josh Brolin, who was the greatest choice to play agent K as a slightly less humbug version of his former self, tend to sufficiently fill the need of their roles without any edgy twists.

The film sadly lacks the familiar humorous punch from the central cast and the awkward situations they end up in. Whereas the first film had tons of abrasive physical humor, such as J being harassed by a newborn alien, similar moments of frenzy are fueled solely by the action.

Any of these reservations will not impede the fun that Men In Black 3 dishes out on its terms, but for a film that can essentially boil down to a rehash of the original 1997 blockbuster hit, the ride feels slightly extraterrestrial.