Film review: Men in Black 3 - the perfect buddy flick

Men in Black 3 is the third entry in the sci-fi comedy series and it is one of those exceptional threequels that is actually better than its predecessors. The 3D in the film is decent while the special effects are snazzy and fun with a well-written script that has plenty of hilarious one-liners for star Will Smith.

The movie also sports some great makeup work, presenting all sorts of amusingly goofy and gooey alien creatures. These creatures, of course, are trying to live on earth in disguise all the while being kept under check by the ‘men in black’, who are part of a secret agency that regulates all alien shenanigans on planet Earth.

Things start at the LunarMax prison on Earth’s moon, where a dangerous intergalactic felon, Boris the Animal (Jemaine Clement), who insists on being called just ‘Boris’, is broken out. Boris, who is a tough humanoid-looking alien with a creepy spider-like insect that rests in the palm of his hand, has only vengeance on his mind against Agent K, who in 1969 not only captured him but also shot off his arm in the process.

Soon, K (Tommy Lee Jones) and his partner Agent J (Will Smith) encounter Boris at a Chinese restaurant run by aliens, where he hints of his plan before making his escape. The next day, when J shows up to work, no one remembers K as if he had died back in 1969. Later, with the help of the new chief Agent O (Emma Thompson), J realises that Boris has changed history by going back in time and killing Agent K. And here we learn that Boris’ actions have ramifications for the space-time continuum. At this point, with the assistance of a lazy shop-owner Jeffrey Price (Michael Chernus), whose father, Obadiah Price (Lanny Flaherty), invented a time travel device, J goes back to 1969 to stop Boris. Eventually, he teams up with K (Josh Brolin), who at this point in life is a young agent.

Under all the goofy alien stuff, the MiB films have always been ‘buddy flicks’, about the relationship between Smith and Jones’ characters. In MiB3, their rapport and their contrasting personalities are given extra attention by the script, lending the film plenty of soul. But what is absolutely exceptional about MiB3 is the performance by Josh Brolin, as a younger version of the iconic Tommy Lee Jones. Brolin’s impersonation is so uncanny as the sullen, narrow-eyed, old fashioned field agent, that you would almost think the actor was an alien. It is almost too good.

Published in The Express Tribune, Sunday Magazine, June 17^th, 2012.