REVIEW OF MEN IN BLACK 3

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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