Men In Black 3 Review

22nd May 2012

Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones return for a third time along with director Barry Sonnenfeld for more MiB action. This time K (Jones) is assassinated in the past and J (Smith) has to leap back to 1969 to rescue him.

That’s the basic premise anyway. We do get an opening act though that sees Smith doing his routine with the sour faced Jones. A few returning visual gags are dusted off from the previous two films to get you back into the familiar territory of all things alien on earth.

This is perhaps the slowest part of the film as it is strongly lacking in gags. They introduce a new villain, who is at least a step up from what we had last time round, but time is wasted setting up the plot and not having quite enough fun along the way.

Thankfully – the moment Smith arrives back in 1969 and Josh Brolin arrives on the scene as a younger K – the film finds its footing. Despite Brolin being too old to play the young K – he sets about stealing the show (and he channels Tommy Lee Jones very well!).

Less impressive is Emma Thompson’s O who has the most cringe-worthy entrance you could ever expect to find, and her younger version is just slotted in to give K someone to make eyes at.

The nostalgia of the 60’s is captured in its most basic form, but used well for a few gags involving Andy Warhol and society’s view on black culture. Smith himself probably gets one of the best gags when he is pulled over by the police of the era which plays well on that. But those jokes fizzle out quickly – especially towards the end when it’s clear that one of the key military officials they have to deal with turns out to be black.

MiB 3 then is a bit of a muddle, and wasn’t injected with enough jokes to help sustain it. The start is plodding, and the end which is a great improvement needed to take it’s time a bit more. Overall you will feel tired at the start, but more rejuvenated by the end. Time-travel indeed.