Here come the Men in Black – even though nobody really asked for them this time around. Ten years after its uninspired sequel, can Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones recapture the magic?
When you’re the world’s biggest movie star, all sorts of projects fall into place. In the case of Will Smith, his son is now the Karate Kid (with he the producer of the rebooted series), his daughter landed a record deal with Jay-Z’s Roc Nation and is still yet to record an album and he can now even bring back franchises from the dead.
Forget the flashy hype of recent weeks – Men in Black was a dead franchise after its awful sequel become a critical flop and grossed $150 million less than its predecessor. Yet exactly ten years after Men in Black 2, here we are again, with a new time travel plot conjured up by Will Smith himself and a storyline originally so convoluted that the film was abandoned for four months mid-filming for the script to be reworked, with reports claiming that scenes were written on the day of filming. Is the eventual film as bad as its messy development sounds?
Yes and no. While Men in Black 3 is being billed as the joyous and long-awaited return of Will Smith’s Agent J and Tommy Lee Jones’ Agent K odd couple routine, the truth is that the latter barely features for longer than 15 minutes.
K’s absence is explained when a decade-jumping villain, Boris the Animal (Flight of the Conchords’ Jemaine Clement, wasted in a surprisingly non-comedic role) goes back in time to remove him from the future. This leaves J to travel back to 1969 and defeat the younger Boris and save his partner as for some reason no one but he remembers the older, previously alive K. Ah time travel plot holes…
Rather admirably, director Barry Sonnenfeld doesn’t skimp over the fact that a black man in late sixties America would have to deal with a fair share of racist nonsense. Yet before we get back to the admittedly inspired interpretation of the 1960s, we first must sit through one of the most painful opening half-hours of any recent blockbusters.
After witnessing Nicole Scherzinger play her part amid ropey CGI work in the ‘Lunar Prison’ breakout of Boris the Animal, the action shifts to the uninspired verbal banter of Agents J and K. Tommy Lee Jones looks craggy and bored, obviously waiting for his paycheque to clear, Will Smith’s Neuralyser memory-erasing excuses cause barely a whimper of laughter and to quote a fellow crime-solving duo series, the two look far too old for this sh*t.
Once the older Agent K is taken out of the current timeline, however, Agent J finds himself in a world that barely remembers the character as anything other than an agent that died valiantly after being killed by Boris the Animal, rather than apprehending him and shooting off his arm as he had done previously. A little bit of time travel exposition later and a jump from the Chrysler Building and we find Will Smith in a world of hats, experimental artists and casual racism – it’s the 1960s.
Once reunited with the younger Agent K (Josh Brolin rather incredulously playing a 29-year-old, even though he’s 44 and actually older than Will Smith), the film finally takes off, with sharp verbal sparring between the two and a performance that isn’t an impersonation of Tommy Lee Jones but captures the chemistry the duo had in the fantastic first film of the franchise.
Once you reach the film’s surprisingly profound and clever third act twist which coincides with the Apollo 11’s Cape Canaveral take-off, you’ll leave the cinema wondering how even though the film stopped production for four months in order to work out the time travel strands, it tied up in a very satisfying manner.
A strong finish, however, does not discount the fact that for much of its brisk running time, Men in Black 3 feels tired and inessential. Unless you’re a Men in Black die-hard fan (I’m not sure they exist), there’s nothing in particular to recommend about this film – there’s not even a tie-in rap song from Will Smith this time around.
For a film that spends so much time in the past, Men in Black 3 hits cinema far too late for the bulk of audiences to care and despite a few moments of originality and the sterling work of Josh Brolin, it’s ultimately a sloppy, meandering release. Do yourself a favour and revisit the 1997 original instead.
