Men In Black To The Future

There seems to have been a lot of discussing that Men In Black 3 is way past its sell by date but I don’t particularly agree with that. If you want an unwanted sequel you only have to look at Sister Act 2, The Whole Ten Yards and Analyze That. The original MIB came out in 1997 and is a mini comedy sci-fi classic in the mould of Ghostbusters. The 2002 was a case of sheer sequelitis with a tired retread of a plot with a comedy tone that was almost devoid of humour.

Ten years later and Will Smith, Tommy Lee Jones and director Barry Sonnenfeld have returned with a sequel that’s light years better than Part 2 but still not a patch on Part 1. The story, this time involving time travel to the late sixties, is much stronger and more interesting, there much more laughs (mainly due to Mr Smith) and it’s got a much stronger villain in Boris The Animal than the last film did.

There’s a middle years Red Dwarf thing going on with Men In Black 3 in that it’s much more interested in its clever science fiction plot than it is in generating jokes…and that’s OK as the film is light, breezy fun but still a little disappointing. The script seems underwritten and could have benefited with much more fish-out-of-water references given the time travel opportunities at hand plus actors like Alice Eve, Bill Hader and Emma Thompson aren‘t exploited to their full potential. Everything else is just adequate; the effects, songs, score, creatures, action and direction are all just run-of-the-mill and solid in execution.

If there’s a stand-out piece of the MIB3 puzzle it’s Josh Brolin playing a young Tommy Lee Jones. He gets the character, the comic timing and the world weariness perfectly and the film only truly comes alive when he an Smith are together onscreen.