With the possible exception of the bean counters at Sony, there weren't a whole lot of people clamoring for a Men in Black III. Ten years had passed since the previous film scored big at the box office but failed to please anybody, and a whopping fifteen years since the first film. Truth be told, Men in Black was stale long before the sci-fi buddy comedy ever opened in a single theater, as that decade had been flooded with silly cop team ups featuring interracial partners. So what if you threw in a few space aliens? What's the real difference? It would stand to reason that revisiting Men in Black in 2012 would be an immediate loser of an idea. Riding the nostalgia wave may be back in full swing, but so few films have been able to capitalize on our desire to turn back the clock. Surprisingly, Men in Black III is one of those that gets it exactly right, making for the most enjoyable film in the series by far.
Crazy, right? The formula for success is remarkably simple: Keep the focus on Will Smith. It's been years since Smith has been in a feature film, and his absence has been sorely felt. Even more, we haven't really seen him just kick back, be cool, and have fun in a very long time, and Men in Black has always been where he really just cuts loose. After a production process that was plagued by delays, script issues and on set tantrums, they finally settled on a story that is stuffed with old school time travel charm that only makes enough sense to last the 100 minute run time.
Agent J(Smith) and his grizzled, cranky old partner Agent K(Tommy Lee Jones) haven't changed much in ten years. K is still a stubborn old coot who says little and smiles less. It's funny how after so many years they still talk as if they barely know one another, and the script smartly focuses on this emotional gap as one of the story's driving forces. When a bitter alien named Boris(Jemaine Clement) escapes from his super-max prison on the moon, he immediately sets out to destroy Agent K, the man responsible for the death of his entire race. Ripping a hole through time, Boris plans on wiping K totally from existence by traveling back to 1969 and correcting his past errors. This leaves J, armed with only his trusty space gun, an irreverent attitude, and a bizarre craving for chocolate milk, to save the day. The biggest hurdles faced by the trio of screenwriters, including superstar scribe David Koepp, was in blending the pastel colored, hippie vibe of the past with the world threatening stakes at play. The best way is to simply litter the era with a bevy of wonderful, memorable characters. In particular, Josh Brolin does a better Tommy Lee Jones impression than Jones as a younger a version of Agent K before all the bitterness and regret. One of the most volatile times in our country's history, a tongue in cheek attitude is taken to the obvious issues of race relations and celebrity. Bill Hader pops up in a hilarious cameo as Andy Warhol, and the silliness surrounding his rise to fame is picked apart with obvious relish.
Barry Sonnenfeld has never been the most inventive of directors, but with the decision to shoot the film in 3D he's stepped his game up considerably. He does a great job using the technology to make each ectoplasmic burst splatter the screen. While light in terms of plot, the script doesn't dumb anything down for the audience, and sets out to clean up many of the lingering questions that have been left over from the previous movies. In that way, Men in Black III is a film that long time fans will appreciate as a fitting wrap up to the trilogy, and they may even shed a tear or two once all the secrets of the universe are finally revealed.
