Men in Black III

Release Date: May 25, 2012
Director: Barry Sonnenfeld
Screenplay: Etan Cohen
Cast: Will Smith, Tommy Lee Jones, Josh Brolin, Emma Thompson, Jemaine Clement, Michael Stuhlbarg, Alice Eve

Reprising their iconic roles as K (Jones) and J (Smith) ten years after the last film, Men In Black III hit theaters this weekend.

With this installment of the series, the Men In Black must head back to 1969 to stop an alien from setting in motion (yet another) catastrophic event. The time-travel messes with the time-space continuum and present-day K disappears, leaving J to go back in time and partner with young K (Josh Brolin).

The film focuses more on J this time, and gives Will a little (yes a little) more acting room with the character. K is there, but he’s played for the most part, by Josh Brolin instead of Jones, since more of the movie is set in the past than in the future. Brolin does a great job playing the younger version of K. It had to be a challenge to find an actor that could capture the stoic charm of Tommy Lee Jones, and Brolin wasn’t a disappointment. The humor is the best part of this film. It’s not as cheesy or base as it was in MIB2, and I’m grateful for that.

As far as sequels go, MIB III is a hit with me. It has all the charm and history of the first film, but also has enough new material to keep the audience interested. It definitely surpassed expectations, as well as redeemed the franchise after the spectacularly underwhelming second film.

I had a good time with this movie. It was great seeing characters I grew up with, watching them re-capture their essence and just have fun again. While the first Men In Black film was the first movie I ever saw more than once in a theater, I think I’ll wait to re-watch this on DVD. But it was definitely a good time.

Rating: ★★★☆☆ 

Jenna

Part-time student, full-time media whore, fan of all things Asian.

7 Responses

  1. Katy says:

    I look forward to seeing this. I guess it’s been too long, I don’t remember MIB2 being too bad. Maybe these types of fun action films I don’t hold too high and can accept if bad…who knows?

  2. amy says:

    Ahhh time-travel. When you mean “the future” you’re really talking about the present, right? xD I thought it was really funny.

  3. Mirella Snape says:

    Yay! I liked this movie just fine XD And I was about to dislike it on principle because certain problems, but it turned out to be fun, and waaaaay better than MIB2, which is not saying much but still!
    BTW, damn the first movie was done 15 years ago… I feel old!

  4. Juan Barquin says:

    I’m just gonna copy and paste my rambling post from my blog for this one:

    Emma Thompson and Bill Hader are the best parts about this and they’re in it for a grand total of ten (maybe fifteen) minutes combined. Jemaine Clement was apparently in this and I had no idea and thought he was young Tim Curry with a really shitty set of lines for most of the movie. He needs better roles in his life. His Conchords partner has an Academy Award and all he has to show is a bunch of bad roles. The amount of race jokes (because lol 1960s black and white relations!!! haha you’re so funny!!!) was really painful honestly. It’s cute to include one or two, but there were a minimum of five and some of them were just tasteless, especially with how they treated Asian stereotypes just minutes earlier!

    Brolin was alright, Tommy Lee Jones just seemed really tired of being involved in this series (as I’m sure he is), and I’m pretty sure Will Smith was secretly replaced with Jay Pharoah who was actually doing his impression of Will Smith the entire movie. Michael Stuhlberg was so fucking adorable as fuck though and even though he had some blech scenes, he was really wonderful to watch, but that’s probably because I’ve been in love with him since I saw A Serious Man. Danny Elfman’s score was really meh compared to his usual work. The jokes were mostly lame and I’ve already mentioned how much they overdid the race thing and that’s all I really have to say about the movie. It’s a step up from the second one, that tried way too hard for it’s own good, but that’s really not saying much at all.

  5. Dan says:

    Thanks for this review. I think it achieves what it sets out to achieve without distinguishing itself too much. An enjoyable entry in the series.

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