Men In Black 3

It is surprising to me that it has been ten years since the last installment in the Men In Black franchise was on the big screen. After how lukewarm I was with Men In Black 2, when I heard they were doing a third installment I was not sure if it was one I would want to see. After seeing the first trailer for MIB3, it looked like with Sonnenfeld back involved that it was going back to the light hearted, fun feeling that was present in MIB. The original MIB was he first time I can remember them melding the movie styles of a sci-fi movie with that of the buddy comedy film. I think it was a great thought process to have Agent J to go back in time to save Agent K from being killed by a serial killer alien and prevent him from changing the course of history.

Will Smith in the role of Agent J is once again perfect and he interacts on screen with everyone on screen seamlessly. Smith is the comedy side of the buddy duo and he truly excels in this role and he has done a great job at giving the role precisely what it calls for. While he has his over the top moments it is those moments that endears his character to the audience. Josh Brolin in the role of Agent K in the 1960's is a dead ringer or how Tommy Lee Jones would be along with almost perfect mannerisms and quirks. The chemistry between Brolin and Smith works so well together and the way they work together really matches the chemistry that Jones and smith have on screen. It was the fact that the chemistry worked so well together between both of these pairs that you actually almost believe Brolin and Jones to be the same character just at different ages. Tommy Lee Jones in the role of Agent K was precisely what we have come to expect from Jones in his roles. He plays the role with such a straight face that it only makes the comedy moments from Smith that much funnier. Jemaine Clement as Boris the Animal does a perfect villain for MIB3. He plays the role with just the right amount of hatred and evilness. Clement is relatively new for me, but he brought this character to life with just the right touch and finesse while still be very intimidating. The rest of the supporting cast for MIB3 are all admirable and provide good support for the lead roles, but in the end most of the supporting cast is very forgettable.

The story for MIB3 I really enjoyed and in the end we learned some strong character development  particularly with Agent K and Agent J that help us understand what has made them both the way they are in the end. The story was also was definitely fun and unique because I truly cannot remember an alien sci-fi comedy that uses time travel as a plot point and how an alien going back in time could change the course of history drastically to be a fun, fresh approach to a sci-fi comedy movie. The time travel was used so sparsely that it did not overpower the whole story while at the same time Agent J uses the time travel device in his favor a couple of times. The story worked so well for me because the pacing fit everything perfectly as it did not feel like the movie was dragging, but at the same time it did not feel like they were rushing to tell the story. I think to go along with the pacing to make the story work the chemistry between the characters fitting so well together helped to only make the story stronger.

The comedic moments throughout the movie all seemed to flow in well together and that either it had been long enough since I last saw MIB that in MIB3 the jokes did not seem rehashed, but very fresh and they made me laugh quite a bit. I loved the new twist in this go around of while they still had the pop culture icons actually being aliens, back in the '60s they take an icon of that time and you think that he is going to be an alien when really he is actually an undercover men in black agent who is sick of being the undercover character. Will Smith in his comedic delivery is perfect and the ability Josh Brolin and Tommy Lee Jones have to be able to play their roles with such a straight face that in the end only makes Smith's jokes and one-liners even funnier. The music by Danny Elfman is so similar to what has been done in the past MIB movies that you know immediately it is a MIB movie. The official theme song by Pitbull is very catchy and once you hear it, it will get stuck in your head for days.

Where I felt MIB2 lost a lot of the MIB feel to it MIB3 re found that fun and lightheartedness. Brolin gave such a great dead on impression that he outshone everyone else on screen and it is because of that that I think the movie ends up being so enjoyable. The back in time aspect of the movie worked and I thought it made for a fun alien movie. I enjoyed the comedic aspects of MIB3 and I felt like the comedy helped to make the movie. I am giving Men In Black 3 three and a quarter buckets of popcorn out of five. This is a movie that I feel is well worth the price to see in the theaters, but I am not sure the 3D is worth going to because it had moments where you can tell they were doing it just for the 3D effect to poke something at you rather then to use the 3D to immerse you in the fantasy world.

-The Movie Man