Hi, Bryan Here….

I was very apprehensive about seeing the third installment of ‘Men In Black’.  I really loved the first film back in 1997.  I was sixteen at the time and remembered how much fun the original film was and what magical characters and comedy it brought audiences worldwide.  Then came the second installment of Men In Black in 2002 which was dull, boring, dialed in, and lacked any real good memories or fun.  I thought that the franchise was done.  That is until I saw ‘Men In Black 3’.   ‘Men In Black 3’ easily makes us remember what we loved about the original film and brings back those elements and even improves on them.  I can see future  ‘Men In Black’ films in the future if they keep this good work up.

I had heard over the past several months that  ‘Men In Black 3’ has had terrible production problems, mostly with way too many writers on board trying to get their slimy hands on the franchise.  There are four writers who are credited as writing the screenplay as of now which was scaled down from before.  But as the credits rolled, Etan Cohen was credited solely as the writer.  Cohen wrote ‘Tropic Thunder’ a few years ago and with just like with that film, the brilliant and smart writing led to a great  ‘Men In Black 3’ film.

‘Men In Black 3’ tells the story of a mean and disgusting time traveling alien, ‘Boris The Animal’ (Jemaine Clement of Flight of the Conchords), who goes back in time and kills Agent K (Tommy Lee Jones) in 1969, thus changing present day for Agent J (Will Smith).  Agent J heads back in time to 1969 to stop the murder of his partner, who is now a young and happier K (Josh Brolin), and thus stopping a vicious alien attack on Earth present day.

Brolin deserves an acting award for impersonating that famous Tommy Lee Jones deadpan southern dialogue.  It’s uncanny on how good Brolin is.  Will Smith is much more lively in  ‘Men In Black 3’ than I’ve seen him in the past few years.  It actually looks like he had a great time on the film and shows us that he stills has a great range of emotions from making us laugh to making us tear up.  Jermaine Clement, known as one half of Flight of the Conchords, plays the ultra evil  Boris the Animal and goes all out in the form of one true evil monster.  But don’t fret, there is a hint of that famous Flight of the Conchord humor in there for you hardcore fans.  Tommy Lee Jones takes a back seat to  ‘Men In Black 3’ as he is only on screen for a matter of a few minutes, but the time he is on screen, it’s golden.

The aliens are in  ‘Men In Black 3’ are top notch.  Oscar winning make up artist, Rick Baker did all the aliens that weren’t CG, and they looked utterly fantastic.  The detail in the aliens ligaments, eyes, and gills were very realistic.  And when Agent J travels back to the 60’s, we get a Mad Men style set complete with what we think aliens would like in the 60’s.  It was really cool to see the difference in the retro aliens and the 2012 aliens.

 

The 3D shined only in a few scenes with objects being hurled at us and a laser show inside a store which was neat, but otherwise, I would have preferred to see ‘Men In Black 3’ in 2D.  Danny Elfman’s score was amazing as it always is.  It was a treat to hear that famous ‘Men In Black’ theme music once again, but sadly there wasn’t a new Will Smith song to run over the credits like in the previous two films.  If you were a fan of the first film, you will completely eat this one up.

-Bryan Kluger

 

By Bryan Kluger

Former husky model, real-life Comic Book Guy, genre-bending screenwriter, nude filmmaker, hairy podcaster, pro-wrestling idiot-savant, who has a penchant for solving Rubik's Cubes and rolling candy cigarettes on unreleased bootlegs of Frank Zappa records.

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