The pic moves briskly once back in the ’60s, having a bit of fun envisioning a lower-tech version of Men in Black gear and working in pop-culture details (a nice gag involves Andy Warhol) without slowing the action a bit.
Then it sends Smith back using a time-travel method that makes little sense - for some reason, plummeting from the Chrysler Building is required - but is a lot of fun to watch. The film lingers just long enough in the present to introduce a replacement for Rip Torn‘s MiB-chief Zed: Agent O ( Emma Thompson), who evidently has history with Agent K. He makes his way to Manhattan, then time-travels to kill the man who once blew off his arm while foiling his plans to conquer Earth for the Boglodite species. Flight of the Conchords co-star Jemaine Clement goes full-tilt ferocious in the role, leaving fans to add their own ironic comedy to his performance (and to imagine him laughing at a repeated catchphrase we assume is intentionally horrible) while he works to live up to Rick Baker‘s genuinely disgusting design for the character.īoris, who often sprouts mouthlike body cavities and has a symbiotic relationship with a projectile-spitting insect, breaks free from a moon-based prison in a high-energy opening scene.
The movie deploys most of its creepy-crawly ETs in the first act, with baddie “Boris the Animal” chief among them. After a time-traveling villain kills K in 1969, Smith’s Agent J must travel back to prevent the murder - where he discovers a youthful, less stony K ( Josh Brolin, easily conjuring Jones’ Texas deadpan) and can’t stop wondering what happened to sap the man’s joie de vivre. The script, credited solely to Etan Cohen despite many rumored contributors, finds a way to give Will Smith the lion’s share of screen time while involving us more emotionally in the character of Tommy Lee Jones‘ Agent K. It’s hard to imagine it won’t be a hit, and hard to begrudge that success, no matter how saturated we are with comic-book properties and sequels. Finding smart ways to bring novelty to the franchise without forsaking what made the original so much fun (and in fact doubling down on some of those qualities), Barry Sonnenfeld‘s Men in Black 3 easily erases the second installment’s vague but unpleasant memory and - though we might hope producers will quit while they’re ahead - paves the way for future installments.
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