Directed by: Barry Sonnenfeld
Starring: Will Smith, Tommy Lee Jones, Josh Brolin, Jemaine Clement
Rated: PG-13
103 minutes
Josh Brolin, Will Smith, and Tommy Lee Jones star in “Men in Black III.” (Courtesy photo)
I forgot, perhaps in the wave of alien movies I’ve seen since the last “Men in Black” movie, that the genre can be successfully exciting without resorting to terror. And now it all comes back to me, the sassy comedy and ultra-campy action that made the first two Men in Black movies fun (albeit stupid fun) to watch. The third installment is no exception, and if anything, it’s better than the others.
Our heroes, Agent J and Agent K (Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones, reprising their roles), are this time faced with stopping the infamous Boris the Animal (Jemaine Clement, of TV’s “Flight of the Conchords”), a vicious alien with aspirations of revenge on Agent K for cutting off his arm. But Boris isn’t just going to go attack K, he’s going to go back in time and kill him before he even loses his arm.
In the present day, K’s absence leaves Earth in a state of havoc. Agent J sees what’s happened and desperately seeks out a way to follow Boris back in time. He takes off, jumping (literally) back in time to 1969, on the eve of the Apollo 11 launch. He finds the younger K (Josh Brolin, “Milk”) and tries urgently to keep him from going where he has historically gone. As J tries to slow down and stop history, Boris tries to accelerate it, while the unassuming Agent K is unwittingly at the center of it all.
Eventually the agents get hold of a force field that will protect Earth from an invasion of Boris’s race of aliens, but in order to deploy it they’ll have to go right where the evil extraterrestrial’s current and former selves are waiting for them.
I enjoyed this movie, and yet I’m at a loss trying to think of anything that actually stood out as good. My best guess is that its mediocrity is by design. Barry Sonnenfeld, who directed the first two “MIB” movies, hasn’t lost the franchise’s silly charm, and the bad special effects add a degree of camp that we can only assume was intentional (at least, I hope so). The result is a movie that’s well paced, that doesn’t feel too long or too short.
Unfortunately, I always get a little flustered with movies that try to deal with time travel, since all the paradoxes about past and future consequences never get fully resolved. “Men in Black III” virtually ignores all of these issues, and it’s probably a stronger movie for it. It’s a weak decision by the screenwriter, Etan Cohen (“Tropic Thunder”), but to try to deal with the impossible questions of time travel would have distracted us from the movie’s focus, which is the decidedly less profound plot.
In the meantime, our leads, Smith and Jones, are getting a little tired in their roles. Or maybe it’s just that the supporting actors are showing them up for the first time. Jemaine Clement, who also played the eccentric antagonist in 2010’s “Dinner for Schmucks,” is perfecting his creepy-but-funny bad guy role, and it seems like a reputation that could serve him well. Josh Brolin is impressive, if only for doing a very good Tommy Lee Jones impression, although both he and Jones are cornered into the introverted, stone wall character of Agent K. Meanwhile, an appearance by Emma Thompson (“Sense and Sensibility”) is surprisingly delightful, and funnier than the other performances.
As a whole, the cast works well, with Will Smith’s sorta-kinda-heroic Agent J as really the only weak link. Luckily, there is so much focus on the plot that he doesn’t detract from our enjoyment of the movie.
On that note, though, not everyone will enjoy this movie, since it’s so plot-driven. You’ll be hard-pressed to find character-driven or deep movies in the summer rush of action flicks anyway, but if that’s what you want you’ll definitely be disappointed with “Men in Black III.” And if you’re looking for big explosions and great special effects, you might find this movie too tame. But if you want to pass the time –and somehow I think that’s what most people like to do on a lazy summer day – then you’ll be in for a treat.
Probably a forgettable treat, but a treat nevertheless.
Danny Eisenberg is a 2010 graduate of the Bromfield School and is currently a student at the University of Pennsylvania.
