The Men in Black are Fading Memories: A Movie Review

Directors: Barry Sonnenfeld.

Writers: Lowell Cunningham and Etan Cohen.

Cast: Will Smith, Tommy Lee Jones and Josh Brolin.

The Men in Black are back in a third installment of this dated franchise product. When the last film was released on 2002, a ten-year wait is enough to kill any idea for a series of films, and unlike another Sony product (namely Spider-man), the anxiety for another film is as exciting as watching paint dry.

Both products are better off retired than given a fresh coat. While Spider-man can easily doff off his red and blue and don the black, leading up to another Venom storyline, at least that is far more exciting than in Men in Black 3 offers. This movie sequel is mostly rehashes of old ideas.

In the many years that Agents K (Tommy Lee Jones) and J (Will Smith) have spent protecting the planet Earth, they still do not understand each other. K is still as stiff as a board, and J is a rock star finally showing a few signs of maturity. He still makes wearing black good. When the story reveals that Boris the Animal (Jemaine Clement) has escaped his prison and wants to return to Earth to eliminate K, the plot becomes very egocentric. The movie is a Will Smith film with Josh Brolin stealing the show.

He plays an amazing younger version of K with a heart. Plenty of character development can be found in what K was like before he became a member of Dragnet. Even J gets some telling details in how much he cares for his partner. As a film that delves into the origins of the two leads, it misses a few things along the way.

Frank the Pug is suspiciously missing, and he was one of the better comedic elements in the early films. Without him, MiB3, feels like a stand-up sci-fi comedy act that is barely passable. Most of the humor is bland. They were more chuckle worthy than hilarious, and the alien invasion threat is underplayed. The action and CGI are just as good as watching the rebooted Star Trek movie, and slightly better than the Star Trek episode, “Assignment: Earth.”

A time-travel story is not a good way to end the franchise, should this film be it. But with rumours from The Marquee Blog on CNN.com suggesting that a fourth film could be developed, this movie is suffering from the "Spiderman" syndrome. Just because the early set of movies made good money, more should not be considered for production. While this third outing does well to create a darker tone similar to the comic, the action-humour is a fine vehicle to parley Smith's role in Hollywood.

But as for the series, the Men in Black should be best delegated to being figures of mystery like the urban myth they come from.

Overall: 6 out of 10.

Source:

Men in Black 4 on CNN

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