Viewed in
2013
Formats
HDTV
Premise
In the third installment of the Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones franchise, J time-travels to 1969, teams up with younger K (Josh Brolin) to fix history.
Loved
Smith and Jones return to comedic form, Josh Brolin's performance.
Liked
Shout outs to the first movie, witty writing.
Disliked
Underuse of Emma Thompson and Jemaine Clement, timey-wimey fudging of MIB canon.
Thoughts
Obviously not as good as the original, but more memorable than the first sequel.
Granted time makes the heart grow fonder, but I'd forgotten how much I loved Smith and Jones' chemistry. Within the first couple lines of J dissing K's stone face, I almost blurted out "now this feels like a Men in Black movie!" Brolin had the unenviable task of channeling K, and holy cow, was he brilliant. He delivered two of the biggest laughs, one where Smith and Brolin just sit in a car in silence, and another where he gave the perfect K reaction after Smith's verbose "science the sciencey science" exposition.
The rest of the cast was kind of mixed bag. Bill Hader was hilarious as Andy Warhol. However, Emma Thompson (lack of material) and Jemaine Clement (caked in CGI and prosthetics [shout out to the great Rick Baker]) were wasted opportunities. Having said that, I dug the scene of younger Clement distracted by older Clement's lost limb, to his exasperation. A pre-Star Trek Into Darkness Alice Eve played the younger version of Thompson.
I felt back at home in this sequel, not just because of the leads' chemistry was back, but also because the witty dry sense of humor was back. Alien flick tropes got flipped, extra-terrestrials wore silly human disguises, and heroes still got sprayed with gross alien fluids. As a huge fan of the first film, I loved the nostalgic shout outs to the MIB legacy, from the HQ to familiar faces, though I was bummed there was no Tony Shalhoub. The writers got great mileage out of the theme of retro MIB technology, with Smith playing off that.
Personally, I viewed it as a summer flick, so the selective butterfly effect time-travel didn't bother me much. However, the revelations at the end seemed to mess with first movie's canon, such as K's love interests, but then again, if I'm not taking the time-travel paradox seriously, then I shouldn't take some of the liberties too seriously either. Even though it didn't make much sense, the added layer of J and K's relationship was surprisingly emotional.
Not all the jokes in Men in Black 3 worked, like the not-novel-anymore use of "celebrity X is an alien!" gag. But overall, I'm glad they made another sequel. Smith and Jones never skipped a comedic beat, Brolin was inspired, and smart writing washed out the bad taste of the forgettable second entry in the MIB franchise.
