It took them a full decade after the second film in the franchise, but a follow-up to Men in Black II finally got the released, appropriately titled Men in Black 3. Indeed, this is the third installment in the Men in Black series, which began with a bang in 1997 and then had a sequel in 2002, before seemingly dying. This is an attempt to give the series a rebirth, and one could easily say that the filmmakers have picked up right where they left off.
One can say that, because there’s not a whole lot of difference between the three chapters. They all have basically the same stories and basically the same characters. For some types of films, the label “seen one, seen ’em all” can be applied. The same is true of this franchise. A formula has been picked, and they’re sticking to it until the franchise stops making back gobs of money. Given that the first two films made just under a combined $1 billion, it’s safe to say that this decision has paid over rather well for the studio, if not for the audience.
The main hook this time around is that Tommy Lee Jones isn’t in the film that much. I’m not kidding, although I wish I was. The deadpan king of the first two films is barely in this one — and that’s supposed to be a good thing. He gets replaced by Josh Brolin, playing the same character, but from 40 years earlier. Yes, most of Men in Black 3 takes place in the past, after a series of convoluted events forces Agent J (Will Smith) to go back into the past in order to save his partner, Agent K (Tommy Lee Jones in the present; Josh Brolin in the past).
The villain this time around, the one who prompts this time travel story, is Boris the Animal (Jemaine Clement, looking nothing like himself), who initially goes back in time to kill Agent K, and succeeds. So, Agent J must go back in time even further to kill the young Boris in order to prevent the older Boris from going back in time at all. Don’t think too hard about it, as the film isn’t too concerned about any of the problems that come from time travel stories.
It occurs to me after this third film that the only character who has done any changing — at least superficially — is Agent K. Will Smith’s Agent J has maintained the status quo for three films now, while Agent K has gone from stoic Agent, to postman, to less-stoic-but-still-stoic Agent. These changes don’t wind up mattering a whole lot, as Agent K still acts the same regardless of which character he’s supposed to be at the time, but it’s still curious how we haven’t really seen Agent J change, even though we’re now in the third chapter of this saga.
Speaking of change, the younger Agent K is nicer than how he is in the future. It’s teased throughout the film that there’s some big moment that changes him — some point in time that turns him from a slightly surly to incredibly surly man — but that never actually comes up. There are other times in the story where the logic used to jump from one area to the next is essentially “Hey, look, a distraction!” There’s no flow and the film feels choppy and significantly trimmed as a result, assuming there were trims to be made and that a solid script was in place before filming, which isn’t a bet I’d make.
It’s amazing how far along CGI has come in the last decade. We can do some amazing things with effects created on the computer. That makes the relatively poor CGI used in Men in Black 3 stand out more than it should. If the filmmakers wanted to make the film look like it was produced right after the first installment, they succeeded, because a lot of this movie looks dated, especially for a film with a budget of $215 million. That is a huge budget, but Men in Black 3 looks like it was made for less than a quarter of that total.
Instead of relying on character interactions, Men in Black 3 decides to go the action route. That’s fine, and it works as a small, but nice, departure from the two other films. The action isn’t particularly good — it’s often clumsy and not at all inventive — but it’s serviceable. The writers still have some good jokes to give us, too, and while this isn’t exactly a smart film, it’s consistently entertaining and funny.
The star of Men in Black 3 is Josh Brolin, doing such a strong impersonation of Tommy Lee Jones that one could assume that the majority of the budget went into figuring out a way to make Tommy Lee Jones a couple of decades younger. The mannerisms and the voice are so convincing that it’s hard to believe that it’s an entirely different actor playing the role. Then again, Brolin is no stranger to impressions, having already convincingly played a former President of the United States.
Men in Black 3 is more of the same, just like Men in Black II was more of the same. If you like the formula, enjoy the characters, and don’t mind seeing them go through another film where they do pretty much the same things one more time — with superficial changes that are ultimately meaningless — then you’ll enjoy this film. If you were already tired of it in the second film, this one will irritate and bore. I had fun, but if they want to make a fourth film, it’ll have to be significantly different, as I’m starting to get weary of this concept, which shouldn’t happen given how much potential it has.