Review - Men in Black 3

Grade: B-

Has anybody honestly missed Will Smith and his whole king of 4th of July schtick?

I’ll wait...

The decline of the straight-up, old-fashioned movie star has been well documented, and Big Willie Style is no exception. Ever since the Fresh Prince started chasing Oscars over Box Office receipts a few years ago, he has started to fade into that unfortunate space where his buddy Tom Cruise used to reside: the space where audiences see stars in the gossip rags more frequently than they do on the silver screen.

Granted, neither the gossip rags nor the box office numbers have been particularly kind to Mr. Smith over the past few years, which means it’s just about time for his team to get the kid from Philly on the comeback trail with a sequel to one of his biggest hits.

In response to the raucous clamoring for more misadventures of intergalactic Border Patrol Agents J and K, Will Smith has dusted off his movie star persona and forced Tommy Lee Jones to come along for a third, and generally unnecessary, Men in Black 3 (MIB3). Roughly ten years after their last outing, J (Smith) and K (Jones) have been going about  their duties blasting aliens into to space goo and neuralyzing innocent bystanders. Meanwhile, on Lunarmax, a supermax space prison for aliens reminiscent of the the floating supermax from this spring’s Lockout, the Macho Man Randy Savage, known here as Boris the Animal (Jermaine Clement doing his best Tim Curry impression)--a one arm Boglodarian with a grudge against the ever-grimacing K--escapes with the aid of a Pussycat Doll (Nicole Scherzinger). His plan is simple: go back in time, kill K, and allow his fellow Boglodarians to invade and conquer Earth. When Boris manages to jump back and erase K from the timeline, J jumps back in time to work with the younger K (Josh Brolin) to prevent the older K from evaporating into nothing and say “aw, hell naw” to a Boglodarian invasion. 

Boasting a simple plot, which is always best when dealing with time travel, MIB3 sports the hallmark breezy silliness of the previous installments, but director Barry Sonnenfeld wisely focuses the action on the relationship between J and K. Sonnenfeld and a writing team headed by Etan Cohen of Tropic Thunder fame use J’s journey back to the past to build K beyond the muttering cartoon he has been since the first Men in Black. J, on the other hand, remains the same boisterous smart mouth he has been from day one, and despite a mildly touching 12th hour retcon, he shows almost negative growth. Sadly, he gets the most screentime and the most “laughs”--including a few ribald racial jokes that recall the discomfort of Wild Wild West--which I’m sure Will Smith and his massive trailer had nothing to do with. Despite dominating the proceedings, Smith still manages to bring an exuberant charm--probably because he’s not running and crying--that occasionally offsets some of the more trite elements of his performance.  Smith even lets co-star Josh Brolin shine in a role that is amazingly more than a drawn-out impression, with Brolin giving some reasonable dimension to K that manages to make Jones’ version that much deeper. Michael Stuhlbarg, best known as Boardwalk Empire’s Arnold Rothstein, also deserves a note for his performance as Mork-ish precog Griffin, a goofy sidekick who bypasses grating and steps very close to being charming.

Combining with the generally inoffensive, albeit formulaic, plot and some decent character-building performances, MIB3 comes off much better in execution than it ever sounded on paper, especially in light of the hubbub around Smith’s efforts to try his hand at screenwriting on a major studio release. Now, MIB 3 is very likely going to get crushed at the box office this weekend, as have all other contenders to the Avengers throne, but at least it is not as bad as the other blockbuster options out there. [UPDATE: MiB3 actually did the trouncing this past weekend, but still didn't prevent Avengers from edging closer to the No. 3 on the biggest domestic box office list] Plus, if we want to spare  ourselves from another Seven Pounds then we need to keep the Fresh Prince focused on making blockbusters and away from leaden, weepy dramas that hurt everybody’s feelings.

The Yin and Yang of it

Yin: More of the same MIB action and jokes. Will Smith dominates the punchlines and the screentime with all the classic Fresh Prince-isms in tow..

Yang: Decent character building courtesy of Brolin and Jones. Smith offsets his trademarks with an almost giddy charm. Generally breezy, inoffensive plotting.

In-between: Will Smith teleports back to 1969. Racial humor in vein of Wild Wild West ensues. Frown.