Men In Black III 3D
DIRECTOR: Barry Sonenfeld
CAST: Will Smith, Josh Brolin, Tommy Lee Jones and Jermaine Clement
CLASSIFICATION: 10 LVMA
RUNNING TIME: 103 minutes
RATING: ***
The Galaxy Defenders who won’t let you remember are back at it. Tommy Lee Jones is looking old, Will Smith can’t really move like he used to and Josh Brolin’s face looks likes it was sandwiched in those huge irons the women in Prisoner Cell Block H used once upon a time. But he’s meant to be stiff, after all – he plays the role of a young Agent K, whom you all know as Jones’s character in the past two Men In Black flicks. Here, fixing the past gives Earth a shot at a future.
In the 1960s, Agent K faced off with an alien called Boris The Animal (Clement) – although the creepy animal insists, “it’s just Boris”.
K locks the menacing thing up for four decades but not before he shoots the beast’s arm off. When this film starts, Boris uses Nicole Scherzinger and her cleavage to escape so he can get revenge on K by destroying Earth. Oh, to do that he has to space jump to the 1960s to change the course of history by killing K – and being able to keep his arm, too.
It’s 14 years since Agent J (Smith) has joined the MIB and, as expected, he is still rather fond of the uptight K (Jones). So when Boris comes back to claim what he believes is rightfully his, J decides to travel back in time so he can stop Boris and save K.
Space-jumping isn’t as cool as they make it sound here, though. From a wing at the Empire State Building, you must plunge towards the concrete, but before your face hits the street you press a button that allows you to take the scenic route. After you dodge the jaws of the dinosaurs you end up in the 1960s.
And even if you didn’t do history at high school, you know that the era of the hippies didn’t come before T-Rex, right?
Anyway, being the black guy sent from the future to save the world in a year when “it wasn’t a great time for your people” (as someone tells J), there is surprisingly very little resistance to this debonair dude walking around like he owns the place. The young Agent K (Brolin) is impressive in his ability appear cold but become a big, sweet Caramello Bear when it comes to J. But young K doesn’t get any brownie points for name-dropping Janis Joplin or knowing Andy Warhol. Without being a spoil-sport, I can tell you that it’s not because K is suddenly a cool dude.
The MIB are in the business of lying to people to protect them, so there.
And it’s a relief to know that the secret agency has come a long way since the age of Flower Power. Sure, they still wear black suits and cool wayfarers but thank goodness they did away with those extremely phallic neurolisers. What hasn’t changed through the ages is the bromance.
Not only does the chemistry between Lee Jones and Smith look as palpable as it did a decade ago, but now Smith and Brolin also work well together. If there is a fourth MIB, it wouldn’t be surprising if Brolin takes Jones’s place permanently. After all, as Agent J says to an old Agent K: “I’m getting too old for this. I can only wonder how you feel.”
* If you liked… Men In Black and Men In Black II… you will love this.