Men in Black are back to the future in third film

Around the time a movie storyline hits film three, things typically take a turn for the overdone or the outrageous. Think Shrek, Home Alone, The Fast & The Furious, The Mummy, etc.

Such was not the case for Men in Black III.

Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones both reprise their roles as Agents J and K respectively, with much hilarity on Smith’s behalf and more than a little stodginess on Jones’ behalf. However, that’s what has made the other two movies such gems, the juxtaposition of Smith’s streetwise and slang slinging with Jones’ understated deadpan delivery.

This movie takes on a whole new set of obstacles for this unlikely pair. In the interest of not spoiling it for fans of the franchise, Agent J is sent back in time to 1969 in order to aid a much younger Agent K in bringing down an alien assassin that Agent K had brought down originally. The alien has escaped from a maximum security lunar prison in order to go back in time and change the course of history. Sounds simple, right?

However, the movie moves at a fairly brisk pace, filling in the viewer as it goes along so to speak. This is a neat trick of director Barry Sonnenfeld’s as it keeps the movie from taking the path of other third-installment flops by relying on back-story and familiarizing the new audience member. Instead, the audience gets kept up to date as the plot progresses and nothing gets stale.

The Men in Black movies are known though for several kinds of jokes and certain humor and this movie, while not a veritable vomit of the previous movies, does stay true to some of the gags used in the earlier films. For example, while at the Men in Black headquarters, there are screens scrolling through known aliens living on Earth and viewers gets a very clear shot of Lady Gaga’s mug on one of the screens. Or, while back in time, one of the older Men in Black Agents is overheard discussing a proposition from an alien race, the Viagrans, about a new medicine. Also, Agent J’s habit of making up idiosyncratic stories after neuralyzing witnesses at a crime scene is ever-funny as he tells a crowd of Chinese people in New York’s Chinatown that when they flush a goldfish, this is what happens as he gestures to the large space-alien that trashed a building and an alleyway behind him. The humor overall is more understated, funny but without great dramatic cues and at times very tongue in cheek.

There’s also a slightly racist if determinedly funny scene in the beginning when current-day Agents J and K infiltrate the aforementioned Chinese restaurant and find the Chinese-alien cooks using less than sanitary alien species as food in an homage to the stereotype that Chinese restaurants cook up cats and dogs.

Another highlight of the movie are the other actors. Josh Brolin plays young Agent K and is rather believable, with the same deadpan and straightforward attitude, but is slightly less world-weary. Jemaine Clement, of Flight of the Concords fame, plays the villain Boris the Animal, the aforementioned alien assassin, with such aplomb so as not to resemble in any way the joke-cracking kiwi he is in real life. Michael Stuhlbarg, known for playing legendary gangster Arnold Rothstein in “Boardwalk Empire”, plays a future-predicting alien named Griffin, who adds a touch of naïveté and light-heartedness to the film. There are also cameos by Will Arnett as Agent J’s alternate partner and Bill Hader as Andy Warhol, who is actually a Men in Black Agent undercover. Hader’s Warhol is especially funny, at one point begging Brolin’s Agent K to fake his death because he can’t take hanging out with the all hippies, of whom he can’t tell man apart from woman.

There are some awkward moments between modern-day Agent K and Agent J as they go through the growing pains of their almost father-son like relationship.

On the whole, the movie is worth the seeing in theaters. Yeah, you might have to see it in 3-D, which means you’ll shell out a few extra dollars for a film that would be just as enjoyable in normal format, but the film is funny, and the cast worth every cent. Expect similar jokes with an updated twist and some quite good sets of 1960’s New York City alongside strong acting with a mix of comedy and drama.