{"id":3016,"date":"2012-05-25T11:34:55","date_gmt":"2012-05-25T17:34:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/?p=3016"},"modified":"2012-05-25T11:35:08","modified_gmt":"2012-05-25T17:35:08","slug":"men-in-black-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/?p=3016","title":{"rendered":"Men In Black 3"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Men in Black 3, like 1997\u2019s Men in Black and 2002\u2019s Men in Black II, is based on the 1990s comic book The Men in Black created by Lowell Cunningham, about a covert agency that monitors non-human beings that walk the Earth.<\/p>\n

But the adaptation context pretty much ends there, as director Barry Sonnenfeld and lead actor Will Smith have taken liberties with the template, starting with replacing the comics\u2019 more serious tone with the movies\u2019 cartoony humor.<\/p>\n

The films\u2019 approach \u2014 a fusion of action, comedy and science fiction with calculated visual splendor \u2014 has connected well with mainstream audiences, judging from the first two MIBs\u2019 millions in box-office moolah worldwide. So it was inevitable that, despite a decade-long gap since and the critical panning of the first sequel in 2002, Men in Black would be back.<\/p>\n

Nice to see you again<\/p>\n

For the most part, the new sequel should be a welcome dose of superficial fun at least to fans of the \u201997 flick.<\/p>\n

Smith and Tommy Lee Jones, as Agents J and K, are back together, rechanneling their respective uppity and surly stances, portraying dark-suited operatives who are experts at both wiping out extraterrestrial goons while subduing any hysterical reaction at the bizarreness they constantly encounter. (In the process, rather alarming onscreen violence abounds here and there, never mind if depicted in cartoony fashion.)<\/p>\n

WILD, WILD WESTERNERS. Tommy Lee Jones and Will Smith fire away inside an alien lair.<\/p>\n

Special effects legend Rick Baker and superb production designer Bo Welch have also been enlisted anew, their masterful output \u2014 Baker\u2019s phantasmagoric creature creations and Welch\u2019s pitch-perfect scenery \u2014 yet again lending lifelike vividness that belies the narrative\u2019s fantastic fakery.<\/p>\n

As with the previous MIBs, this new one \u2014 via scriptwriter Etan Cohen (and reportedly via rewrites from David Koepp and Jeff Nathanson) \u2014 has a good-versus-evil big-picture premise that, along the way, depicts how the universe is far larger and more complicated than we think. This 2012 flick likewise loosely presents aliens as symbolic of the world\u2019s variety of races and walks a very fine line in mining racial issues for laughs. (A portion where Smith\u2019s Agent J has to steal a car then gets questioned by cops is MIB3\u2019s purest comedic moment, though perhaps due in part to the absence of non-humans in the scene.)<\/p>\n

As with its two predecessors, Men in Black 3 has a constellation of silverscreen stars, most of whom are underutilized. The esteemed Emma Thompson adds regal flavor to her bits (though a moment where she is made to act ridiculous is quite painful to watch). Arrested Development\u2019s Will Arnett comes and goes without making so much as a blip. Saturday Night Live\u2019s Bill Hader gets to portray Andy Warhol as a man trapped in his own pretentious artistry (the comic has much better moments of impersonation on SNL, such as his fun \u201cStefon\u201d). And Entourage\u2019s Alice Eve and part-Pinoy Pussycat Doll Nicole Scherzinger sizzle in their precious few moments of visibility.<\/p>\n

BAD BOY, BAD GIRL. Jemaine Clement and Nicole Scherzinger are deliciously villainous.<\/p>\n

And as before, there is an array of \u201ccelebrity extras\u201d who are suggested as suspected aliens (and, thus, become a source of audience chuckles), this time including director Tim Burton, sports heroes Yao Ming, David Beckham, and \u2014 tada \u2014 Lady Gaga.<\/p>\n

Fresh, new ingredients<\/p>\n

Men in Black 3 does have its share of new ingredients that prevent viewer weariness from setting in, besides the use of breathtaking digital 3D. (An aside: Soon enough, changeover cues \u2014 those signals for projectionists that are flashed on the upper right corner during theatrical screenings \u2014 could become extinct.)<\/p>\n

For one thing, the story\u2019s time-travel aspect allows for a \u201ctime jump,\u201d whereby Agent J, armed with a handy time-traveling device from a geeky merchant, has to take a steep leap in order to go back to July 15, 1969 (a day before the Apollo 11 launch), and save a younger Agent K from being decimated by a time-traveling, revenge-exacting alien nemesis.<\/p>\n

JONESING FOR TOMMY LEE. Josh Brolin does his best Tommy Lee Jones.<\/p>\n

The resulting time jump sequence proves exhilarating and imaginative: as Agent J (and the camera, so to speak) descends from a thousand-feet height and fumbles with the time-warp device on the way down, he briefly gets transported into an even earlier time, when desperate men actually leapt from great heights following the 1929 stock market crash. (Another aside: Time travel is perhaps the most obsessed-about human wish in sci-fi movies, next to the yearning to fly.)<\/p>\n

On another \u201ctime\u201d note, Men in Black 3 has at least one glorious moment which ponders \u2014 by way of the New York Mets\u2019 1969 World Series victory \u2014 how a series of events in individual lives can coalesce into a momentous turn of events, resulting in one of the movie\u2019s more fascinating and rare moments of profundity.<\/p>\n

MIB3 also introduces new toys for the big boys called \u201cmonocycles\u201d \u2014 motorcycles with a large vertical halo that seems to have been partly inspired by another eye-candy blockbuster, Tron, and is utilized with glee in MIB3\u2019s token road chase scene.<\/p>\n

BIKER BOYS. Will Smith and Josh Brolin aboard a pair of ‘monocycles.’<\/p>\n

But perhaps the best new ingredient to the MIB trilogy is actor Josh Brolin, who plays the younger Agent K and thus gets to do a big-time impersonation of Tommy Lee Jones (who, curiously, has much lesser screen time this time). Brolin is practically the main star of this new movie, even managing to upstage Jemaine Clement (who takes on the disgusting-villain role but with the reliable chutzpah he had served up as one half of the joke-rock duo Flight of the Conchords) and, heck, even the boisterous Will Smith himself.<\/p>\n

Brolin, clearly no longer a shadow of his father James, is such a hoot here that he might even get to reprise his latest role should there be an MIB4.<\/p>\n

Okay, now the bad stuff<\/p>\n

To be fair, Men in Black 3 does not really pretend to be anything more than an entertaining, 105-minute diversion. Yet I can\u2019t help but point out a trio of regrettable quirks.<\/p>\n

For starters, this years-in-the-making movie could not muster enough originality as to avoid regurgitating subplot points from three earlier Hollywood hits: Back to the Future, Superman II and The Terminator. (Once you spot them during MIB3, you just might be inclined to point to the screen once you see what I mean.)<\/p>\n

Then there\u2019s the slippery depiction of aliens \u2014 or put another way, foreigners \u2014 as largely the scum of the planet. Save for one crucial character, the slew of antagonists here are all non-humans. One can even take issue in the fact (coincidental maybe, but still) that Clement himself is not an American (he\u2019s from New Zealand). And there is this rather ghastly sequence at a Chinese restaurant where the proprietors are depicted as being unscrupulous business folk. (Our ongoing shoal disputes aside, did that sequence\u2019s characters really have to be of Chinese descent?)<\/p>\n

To top it all, all the jokey lines, colorful settings, hyper-real situations and brisk action end up being a red \u2014 and white and blue \u2014 carpet for what seems to be MIB3\u2019s bottom-line agenda: of propping up the United States of America as, shucks, Earth\u2019s mightiest hero.<\/p>\n

We see this not just in how the MIB is headquartered on US soil \u2014 New York City, specifically \u2014 but in some other details.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s the use of the iconic Chrysler Building as the time jump-off point, specifically its 61st floor with its ornamental bald eagles. (There are other towering skyscrapers in NYC but the filmmakers just had to pick the one that depicts America\u2019s national bird.) And then there\u2019s all the crucial action on July 16, 1969, the date when NASA launched Apollo 11 \u2014 not just to let men walk and then plant an American flag on the moon but, in MIB3\u2019s case, to actually save the world from a potential alien invasion.<\/p>\n

PARTNERS IN TIME. Josh Brolin and Will Smith trigger good chemistry.<\/p>\n

Sure, I just might be reading too much into all this. In which case, see Men in Black 3 for yourself and ponder why, in the midst of all the good time, it has its stars-and-stripes hard sell. And here I was thinking ours is a supposedly globalized era.<\/p>\n

But then, who knows? Maybe Sonnenfeld and company, or whoever compelled them to go in this direction, just want to stress that \u201cUSA\u201d does not stand for United States of Aliens.