" Men in Black III " Releases in May 23 to 25. ( Offical HD Trailer & Plot Review )

Movie Info

Movie release date:Belgium, France, Ireland: 23 May 2012
Australia, Czech Republic, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Hungary: 24 May 2012
Netherlands, Portugal, Slovenia, Thailand: 25 May 2012
Brazil, Finland, India, Norway, Poland, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, UK, USA: 25 May 2012
Star Cast: Will Smith, Tommy Lee Jones, Josh Brolin
Styles: Action & Adventure, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Comedy & Crime
Director: Barry Sonnenfeld
Writers: Lowell Cunningham
Production Companies: Abmlin Entertainment, Media Magik Entertainment

Movie analysis: Men in Black III

For months, the hearsay were that Men in Black III was fated for disaster -- reportedly beginning before a script was created, trapped in difficulties as to whether Tommy Lee Jones could come back to the operation, with the multi-million spending budget that ballooned into the rumored range of $350 million like the national debt under Bush and so on and so forth. But, just like the thick door in the restaurant hides the homicidal bitchin' which goes down inside the kitchen while you enjoy your dinner, the real film here is not only good enough to make you forget those problems, but astonishingly great enough for you to appreciate it. Reuniting Will Smith with Tommy Lee Jones as Agent J and Agent K, street-level officers of an agency that monitors the alien life secretly living on earth, Men in Black III moves fast enough to glide over its own problems, with movie director Barry Sonnenfeld's sure hand, 3D and Josh Brolin giving it the push it needs to keep from utter catastrophe.

On this occasion, an assassin named Boris the Animal (Jermaine Clement of Flight of the Conchords, unrecognizable and refreshing under Rick Baker's delightfully well-crafted make-up) escapes from prison and, trying to prevent his arrest and mutilation by Jones' K in 1969, takes advantage of a time machine to zip back to the past and undo his capture and pain. By killing K. Which he does, with time being re-written in brisk, visual fashion; only Smith's J, for reasons uknown, recalls that things are as they should never be, and quickly goes back to the past to try and end the present-day Boris before the present-day Boris can stop the past K from ending the past Boris. (Jeffery Price, as the owner of the time machine, and all attendant exposition, advises K to get in, get on with it and leave, or face being trapped in 1969, "… which was not the appropriate time for your people." It's a notice of realism that makes the illusion much better.)
Adrift in a '60s that's half Mad Men, half Catch Me if You Can, J eventually see K's more youthful self -- played, with uncanny timing and precision, by Josh Brolin, who doesn't so much replicate Jones as inhabit him, with some striking similarities and startling differences. (While the Academy is normally loath to recognize comedic performances, the mix of skill and spirit that go into Brolin's work here, I'd argue, are at least worthy of a nomination.) And as Smith himself has pointed out, the sci-fi-meets-the-'60s plot helps keep J a fish out of water even after 14 years of in-continuity service to the agency, a smart fillip that moves the movie ahead wonderfully while keeping Jones' amount of work lower enough to, maybe, help attract him to keep in the movie. Clement is an outstanding bad guy whose work is exactly in tune with the mood of the series as we know it -- lethal and ludicrous, psychopathic and preening, terrible and egotistic.
But if there's a third Man in Black -- or fourth, based on just how you count Brolin's younger K, or fifth, if you include Emma Thompson's agreeable work as Agency head O, or sixth, if you include Alice Eve's comedic turn as the younger O -- it would have to be Barry Sonnenfeld, who's directed all three installments. Sonnenfeld's swooping, giddy camera work has been a highlight of films he's made or worked on for decades, and the fluid, freewheeling glides and slides of the camera he's given us since Raising Arizona and Blood Simple turn the films post-conversion 3D into an expressive, animating delight. Sure, there are problems with the script in Men in Black III, and a lot of exposition, and a finale that culminates in a summer-blockbuster standard fight atop something tall, but Smith's comedic timing, Brolin's virtuoso work and some other sections of quality like Michael Stuhlbarg (A Serious Man) as an unfamiliar with a neurotically omniscient perception of all possible worlds, best and worst create for an pleasurable bit of popcorn diversion.
On occasion, a movie with so many editors on the script and a lot money in the spending budget ends up being above-average, or not less than above-adequate, and when I'd hope that all parties concerned are ready to hang up the black suits and shades, Men in Black III isn't that bad a ending for a franchise that, through hook and crook, not only hung onto its initial superstars and director but also our interest and fun.