REVIEW OF MEN IN BLACK 3

About The Movie:

The
intergalactic criminal Boris the Animal (Jemaine Clement)
escapes from the LunarMax prison on Earth's moon, intent on going back in time
and killing Agent K (Tommy Lee Jones), who on July 16, 1969, had shot off one of
his arms and captured him. After investigating a spaceship crash in New York
City, and following a skirmish in a Chinese restaurant, K deduces Boris has
escaped, and K regrets not having killed him. He returns to his apartment,
where all traces of him disappear. Agent J (Will Smith),
however, still remembers K, though no one else at Men in Black headquarters
does.

Agent O (Emma Thompson),
the new Chief after Zed's passing, deduces from J's statements that a fracture
has occurred in the space-time continuum. The two realize Boris must have
time-jumped to 1969 and killed K, resulting in an imminent invasion of Earth by
his race, the Boglodites, due to the absence of the protective ArcNet shield
around Earth, installed by K in 1969. Aided by electronic-shop owner Jeffrey
Price, son of Boris' fellow prisoner Obadiah Price, who created the time-travel
device, J time-jumps off the Chrysler Building to
reach time-travel velocity. With only 24 hours to stop Boris, J arrives a day
before Boris kills K.

J follows a clue to Coney Island,
where 29-year-old agent K (Josh Brolin) arrests him and then questions him at MIB
headquarters, while a young Agent O (Alice Eve)
happens by. Getting no answers, K places J in a large, primitive Neuralyzer .
At the last second, J says he'll tell the truth of his mission. As a team, they
follow Boris' trail to a bowling alley and then to The Factory,
the studio / party space of Andy Warhol's
(Bill Hader),
who is actually the undercover Agent W. The Agents meet the alien Griffin (Michael Stuhlbarg),
an Arcadian who possesses the ArcNet and is able to see all possible futures.
Griffin leaves before Boris arrives to snatch him. The Agents locate Griffin at Shea Stadium,
where he gives them the ArcNet and instructs them to place it onto the Apollo 11 lunar
rocket launch occurring in less than six hours. Boris then snatches Griffin,
but the agents, on monocycles, give chase and recover Griffin.

Upon arriving at Cape Canaveral,
the agents and Griffin are arrested by military police. A Colonel (Mike Colter),
however, allows the agents to carry on their mission after Griffin uses his
precognitive power to show him what J will accomplish. At the launch pad, J and
K confront both 1969 and 2012 incarnations of Boris. J uses the time-jump
device to confuse Boris, and pushes him off the pad to his death. K, battling
the younger Boris, ruptures a hose, causing it to spray liquid nitrogen on
Boris' left arm, shattering it. K plants the ArcNet on the rocket, and the
protective shield deploys after reaching Earth's atmosphere. The Colonel
congratulates K, who invites him to join the agency.

As J watches from the distance,
however, 1969 Boris emerges from the blast chamber and kills the Colonel, only
to be killed by K. A child named James exits a military vehicle looking for his
father. He pulls out a pocket watch, revealed earlier to have been passed down
to Agent J by his father, and J realizes that the colonel killed by Boris was
actually his father. K neuralyzes young James, telling him his father was a
hero.

J returns to the present day, where
he meets his partner at the usual diner. There, he shows K his father's pocket
watch. The senior agent, in return, tells him it was an honor to have met him
that fateful day. As they leave the diner, Griffin, a few seats away, muses all
is well with the world, except for the fact that K forgot to leave a tip,
indicating they are in a timeline where the Earth is about to be hit by an
asteroid. Then, K returns to the diner and leaves a tip, revealing this
timeline to be one where the asteroid disintegrates when hitting a satellite.

What Is Good About The Movie:

"MIB3" is one giant leap for mankind because Josh Brolin shows up to play the younger Agent K. And he just nails the feat, triumphantly creating a riff on/homage to the Tommy Lee Jones-ness of K that goes much deeper (and funnier) than a simple imitation of drawl and speech patterns. Brolin conjures up a man in full, just as taciturn but not nearly as closed as the craggy puss he is when Jones does the squinting.

It's a
great performance, one for the thespian yearbook. And, as happens in the best
of cases, Brolin raises his costar's game. For an African-American Hollywood
superstar like Smith, marching his character backwards to 1969 presents unique
opportunities for social commentary on changing perceptions of American black
men. Smith makes big statements with the most casual and charming of reactions
and line readings.

Sonnenfeld and Cohen move their baby along with an integrity and
gait that ought to serve as a blueprint for other filmmakers faced with the
particular challenges of reviving big-ticket and time-dated hunks of pop
culture. Amid the mayhem, the movie is sophisticated enough to note the family
resemblance between Rick Baker-stitched aliens and the human creatures who
populated Andy Warhol's Factory  in the downtown Manhattan of 1969.

And even while Brolin's K is embroiled in a high-tension climactic
showdown with Boris -- at Cape Canaveral, on the day the Apollo 11 crew blasted
off for the moon -- there's air and space enough in the movie to evoke the real
awe of that day, that time. The film isn't afraid of emotional truth. Which is
why, in the end, "Men in Black 3" would be nothing without the
participation of the alien called Griffin.

Played with melting sweetness by the wonderful Michael Stuhlbarg,
Griffin has the gift -- and curse -- of seeing the future, or, more
specifically, seeing multiple, equally possible futures, some swell and some
less so. Griffin's eyes are a misty blue, and he wears a little wool hat and a
perpetual worried smile. He's gentle and patient and he wishes the best for
humankind, but he can't guarantee it. Likewise, there was no guarantee that
after so long an absence, there would be anything fresh to say about "Men
in Black." Yet behold, it is good.

What Is Bad About The Movie:

Many would see this movie and say the time travel bit makes no sense, but I actually enjoyed it. I've read articles written on the holes in this plot line, but for everyone I find I can find a reason why it plausible. But seriously it is just a movie and I feel we should take it for what it is.

Overall Grade:

A