Men in Black 3 arrived in 2012 as the third film in the series, a sequel to Men in Black II and the closing chapter of the original trilogy. Barry Sonnenfeld directed. Etan Cohen wrote the screenplay, with uncredited rewrites from David Koepp and Jeff Nathanson. Will Smith, Tommy Lee Jones and Josh Brolin star. It runs 106 minutes.
The premise is a time jump. Boris the Animal escapes from a maximum-security prison on the Moon to take revenge on Agent K, who shot off his arm and arrested him in 1969. Boris obtains a time machine from Jeffrey Price and travels back to July 16, 1969 to kill K, altering history. Agent J follows him into the past.
Trailer, via Sony Pictures Entertainment.
Will Smith Carries the 1969 Half
Smith’s Agent J has spent 15 years with the Men in Black, and the film asks him to carry the whole thing. J’s memory survives the fracture of the space-time continuum, though he suffers strange side effects that Agent O identifies as signs of the break.
Jones returns as K, and Men in Black 3 hands long stretches of the film to Josh Brolin as the younger K. Brolin plays the part straight against Smith, and the pairing gives the 1969 sections their own comic rhythm.
Jemaine Clement’s Running Gag
Clement plays Boris with real menace and one reliable bit: he hates being called “the animal” and insists it is just Boris. It is the sharpest writing in the film. Clement gets the funniest lines and the most physical work.
The plot mechanics around him are where the film thins out. Boris needs a time machine, so he obtains one from Jeffrey Price, an electronics store clerk whose father, Obadiah Price, invented the technology. J follows the same trail into the past. The film treats time travel as a way to move the characters rather than a puzzle to solve.
Griffin Sees Every Possible Future
Michael Stuhlbarg plays Griffin, an Archanan who can view all possible outcomes. He escaped to Earth after the Boglodites destroyed his planet. Griffin is the best idea in the movie and the least used. A character who sees every possible future could drive a time-travel plot. Here he is a guide who points the way and then recedes.
Emma Thompson plays Agent O, the head of MIB, succeeding Zed. Alice Eve plays the younger O in 1969. Thompson’s scenes suggest a stranger movie about the agency’s internal life than the one around her.
The cast is deep, and the film knows it:
- Will Smith as Agent J
- Tommy Lee Jones as Agent K
- Josh Brolin as Young Agent K
- Jemaine Clement as Boris the Animal
- Emma Thompson as Agent O
- Michael Stuhlbarg as Griffin
- Nicole Scherzinger as Lilly Poison
- Michael Chernus as Jeffrey Price
- David Rasche as Agent X
- Keone Young as Mr. Wu
Bill Hader appears as Andy Warhol, secretly an MIB agent. Justin Bieber, Lady Gaga, Yao Ming and Tim Burton cameo as aliens on television monitors. Rick Baker, the make-up artist, plays the Brain Alien.
The ArcNet Is the Real Story
Buried in the plot is the ArcNet, an interplanetary shield K deployed that stopped the Boglodites from invading Earth. That is the real story: K made a choice decades ago that saved the planet, and J and K fall out because K refuses to explain what happened with Boris.
Men in Black 3 stages its climax in 1969, at Shea Stadium and the Factory, where Griffin is found and the two Borises converge. The problem is everything between the premise and that climax. The middle of the film is a chase with a clairvoyant, a time machine and a younger version of a character we already know.
Danny Elfman Returns, $215 Million Later
Danny Elfman, who scored the previous two installments, returned. The production budget was $215 million, which makes Men in Black 3 one of the most expensive films ever made. That number is visible on screen in the effects and the period recreation.
The film premiered at O2 World in Berlin on May 14. It is stylized as MIB³ in promotional material. The tagline is “Back in time.”
What the Sequel Gets Wrong
Men in Black 3 has a good idea at its center and does not build enough around it. The time jump gives Smith and Brolin room to work, and both are worth watching. Clement is the strongest villain this reviewer has seen in the series. But the film resolves its central mystery and then spends its back half catching up to the consequences.
The ArcNet, Griffin and the 1969 setting are all stronger than the movie built around them.
This reviewer would rank it above Men in Black II and below the first film. The franchise’s appeal has always rested on the partnership, and this entry spends much of its runtime with only half of it.
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