Latest Men In Black doesn’t disappoint

“Men In Black III” picks up just where you would expect it. Agent J (Will Smith) and Agent K (Tommy Lee Jones) are in the midst of cov­er­ing up a dis­as­ter by “repro­gram­ming” the mem­o­ries of those who wit­nessed an oth­er­worldly hap­pen­ing. Mean­while, in a remote maximum-security prison on the Earth’s moon, Boris “The Ani­mal” (Jer­maine Clement) exe­cutes his prison break. Now he plans to travel back in time to exact revenge on Agent K (Jones/Brolin) and pre­vent his impris­on­ment. Agent J expe­ri­ences a time shift from the par­al­lel time­line that Boris cre­ates and real­izes that he must return to 1969 in order to stop Boris and save the uni­verse once again.

In a sea of comic-book-turned-movie adap­ta­tions, it is easy to for­get that “Men In Black” also had its sub­tle begin­nings rooted in their pages. This series of movies always has a ver­i­ta­ble bar­rage of quirky alien char­ac­ters that you could eas­ily imag­ine see­ing in comic form. While the “Men In Black” are not your typ­i­cal cape-wearing super­heroes, they are just as impor­tant to the sum­mer movie lineup when it comes to sav­ing the uni­verse. “Men In Black III” is no small player either. Aside from the comic books and three movies, the fran­chise has also spawned a car­toon series, video games, fan web­sites, Hal­loween cos­tumes, a toy line and some very expen­sive, licensed prop repli­cas. You can get your very own neu­r­a­lyzer for about $400 on the inter­net. Although, if it really worked, I would hap­pily shell out that much so that I could for­get Adam Sandler’s last few movies — espe­cially “Jack and Jill.”

The over­all pace of the film is very spry. There is such an onslaught of action that the 106 min­utes really flew by for me. I sug­gest you get your con­ces­sion stand and restroom trips out of the way before the lights dim because “Men In Black III” deliv­ers non-stop plot accel­er­a­tion with an ample help­ing of comedic retort. After three films, Smith and Jones are obvi­ously com­fort­able with play­ing these char­ac­ters. Their onscreen inter­ac­tion with one another is fun­da­men­tal to the suc­cess of this fran­chise. Will this movie have a dif­fer­ent feel to it dur­ing the scenes where Jones was not present and Brolin would be depict­ing the role of Agent K? The answer is a resound­ing “NO.” Josh Brolin’s char­ac­ter­i­za­tion of a young Agent K was flaw­less. It was as if I were watch­ing Tommy Lee Jones him­self play that role 40-some years ago. He per­fected the man­ner­isms of the char­ac­ter every bit as good as Jones did.

The props are one of the things that make “Men In Black III” so fun to watch. From the absurdly large ray guns, neu­r­a­lyz­ers and mono­cy­cles to the liv­ing ones like the shop own­ers and aliens, it is a visual mas­ter­piece of CGI. I have always liked the way that they all have a 1950’s styl­iza­tion to them. The guns and ships are art­fully crafted with sleek curves while the aliens are like some­thing you would imag­ine while lis­ten­ing to an H. G. Wells broad­cast. There is also a level of plea­sure that you get when you see aliens lit­er­ally explode into an erup­tion of slime as the heroes engage in melee with their chromed ray guns.

One of the devices that “Men In Black” has been con­sis­tent with is also one of the things that I like most about the series. They are adamant about show­ing secrets behind things that are right under our noses. If you think back to the first “Men In Black,” the cock­roach alien was try­ing to leave Earth via a space­ship in Flush­ing Mead­ows Park, NY that we con­ceived as an obser­va­tion tower built for the World’s Fair in 1939. “Men In Black II” had a news­stand mas­cot dog that turned out to be Agent F. We are also told that many of Earth’s most beloved celebri­ties are actu­ally aliens, includ­ing Elvis and Michael Jack­son. “Men In Black III” has a few of these won­der­ful pre­mo­ni­tions, too. Andy Warhol is finally explained in such a man­ner that it actu­ally makes sense. You get to see what really hap­pened out of cam­era sight at the Apollo 11 launch. Heck, you will even learn what goes on at seedy bowl­ing alleys when you aren’t there.

“Men In Black III” will eas­ily appeal to fans of its two pre­de­ces­sors. It has a great struc­ture and flow to it that make it a good stand­alone movie, too. If you have not yet seen the first two movies in the series, please try to check them out. They are very enter­tain­ing and clev­erly con­structed. “Men In Black III” was a plea­sure to watch and had a entic­ing sto­ry­line sup­ported by some phe­nom­e­nal act­ing. We have been promised some great movies this sum­mer, and this one is no exception.

Posted by Scott Hall on May 25 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.