Film Reviews

Men in Black III

• Rating:
• Director: Barry Sonnenfeld
• Starring: Alice Eve
• Details: USA/105mins PG

Will Smith must be one of the most frustrating actors working in modern cinema. I mean, we can take Johnny Depp and his insistence on churning out the same "quirky" character, (in essentially the same film) to a certain degree - and by that, I mean it's becoming increasingly easier to ignore him. Smith, however is different, because he is almost unfathomably charismatic on screen; capable of switching from strong, serious work in the likes of I Am Legend to effortless comedy in Hitch or Bad Boys. But these days, he's not acting like an actor, he's acting like a business - and that's why we're seeing him in a second sequel to a franchise very few people gave a fuck about to begin with, instead of Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained (which he was offered).
Smith returns to play Agent J, with Tommy Lee Jones donning the funeral attire to play his grumpy partner Agent K once again. The convoluted time travel plot sees a dangerous prisoner escape from a prison on the moon and figure out how to go back in time so he can avenge something that K did. When Smith's J turns up to work the next day, he's told that K was killed on the job 40 years ago. Realising that he must travel back in time - not just to save K, but the world - he ends up in a strange but colourful 1969, where the young K looks a lot like Josh Brolin.
While well made, often slick and generally an impressive production, we didn’t need another Men in Black film - certainly not ten years after the second one came and went like a fart in a hurricane. The plot feels desperate, the newly-introduced characters merely there to buffer the decade-long gap as plot devices; generally, this film aims to cover so many bases that it never really does anything with conviction. There was something innovative about the first Men in Black film that really caught the imagination of the cinema-going public; Smith was firmly on the ascent then, and his pairing with Jones was inspired. Sonnenfeld, too, knew how to handle it tonally and gave the now fourteen-year-old film that elusive blockbuster shine that Hollywood loves. Now, it just feels like a rethread, because that's exactly what it is.
On the plus side, Brolin is great. He has Jones down so well that you'd be forgiven for thinking that The Fugitive Oscar-winner dubbed over the voice. It's an impersonation, but it's what the role called for and he's excellent. Smith has his moments (but not enough of them), while an absent Jones was probably thinking about putting another floor on his house all the way through his brief appearance.
There are some entertaining moments here, but overall, MIB3 serves only as further testament to Will Smith's self-image as a business, rather than an actor - which is a real shame.