I have so many fond memories of watching Men in Black when I was little, I remember being excited for Men in Black 2 and it delivering to what I wanted. I haven’t seen either of the movies in quite some time, but I know that I like them and I’m content at leaving it at that. When they announced that MIB3 was coming out I was excited, I was also careful not to hype myself up too much about it because I knew that would probably end up hurting what I thought about the movie. One thing I was worried about was whether they would be aiming the movie at the age group the first two were made for or if it was going to be for the people who watched them originally.
The idea behind MIB3 is that Borris The Animal (“It’s just Borris!”) escapes from the Lunar Max prison after 40 years of being stuck there after being arrested by K when he was a Junior Agent, he then travels back to Earth to acquire time jumping technology so that he can go back to 1969 and prevent his arm being blasted off by K and to kill K before he can arrest him. Back on Earth X has passed away and O is taking his place, J talks to K about the eulogy he is going to be giving and tell K to put some much-needed emotion into it, after the eulogy, that lasted all of a couple of minutes, J confronts K about this and they get into quite the argument which ends in J hanging up on him before he is able to tell him something very important. The next day J shows up at MIB headquarters to find out that K has been dead for over 40 years, killed on duty by Borris The Animal. O figures out what has happened and explains to J how he can go back in time and fix everything so that he can get back into his own timeline.
He manages to jump back in time and he meets up with a young Junior Agent K, played by Josh Brolin, and he has to explain to him where he’s from and why he’s here. K believes him and they set out to set up the Archnet before Borris the Animal kills the young K. Throughout the entire movie there is some great comedy, mostly spotlighted in the moments when J wipes a group of people’s memories and explains to them what just happened, there are some really good-looking action scenes, with WAY too much slow motion, the 3D wasn’t even half bad in this movie. Josh Brolin’s impression of Tommy Lee Jones was absolutely fantastic, I loved it so much, that was almost worth the terribleness that was the villain of this movie. That is basically where the good things I have to say about this movie stop.
I’m going to start with my main problem with the movie: Borris the Animal. Terrible character, he was obnoxious, annoying and I couldn’t stand watching him on-screen. I’m glad he got no more screen time then he got otherwise I probably would have gone insane, he was there, it was known what he was doing, but they didn’t focus on him too much because the main story had more to do with J and K, not Borris. It pains me to say how much I couldn’t stand this character because he is played by Jemaine Clement of Flight of the Conchords, and I love him, the FLight of the Conchords show was one of the best shows on TV while it was airing. The idea behind his character was good but the execution was terrible, that is what my problem was behind him. The movie was good in a lot of ways, but that’s all it was, good, it wasn’t a really good movie, it wasn’t a great movie, it was just a good movie. It was funny when it needed to be and it was serious when it should be, but it didn’t stand out. Sadly it was a big disappointment on the whole.
There were definitely some redeeming qualities to this movie, they comedy was really solid for the most part, there were a lot of groaning moments, mostly whenever Borris opened his mouth, but otherwise I enjoyed it. There was a part in the movie where J and K meet Andy Warhol, who is really an agent with the MIB, I thought that was a great thing to throw in there just for laughs, it also makes a lot of sense when you think about it, which kind of worries me now that I think about it…Anway! At the party where they meet Andy Warhol they also meet a character named Griffin, he had the ability to see every possible future at the same time. Not just the possible future for the moment they were in but the possible future for ever moment ever. He was a character that I really enjoyed, he ended up being a very important character which I was glad for because he was interesting and well written.
At the beginning of the movie I was really worried that it was going to be absolutely terrible, and keep in mind it wasn’t that great anyway, because the first 5 minutes were filled with Borris and he just spouted pun after pun, bad joke after bad joke. Thankfully the movie got away from that eventually but it didn’t really progress too much further. They seemed to have written the story for the original fans of the franchise but then they dumbed it down so it could be enjoyed by a younger crowed, that is where I think this movie went wrong: trying to make it for fans that are too young to really have known the first two movies. There’s a moment at the end of the movie that rediemed this movie for me, I’m not going to say much about it but it was super heartfelt and definitely brought tears to my eyes. I made the movie come full circle nicely I think. It shows why J and K are so close and I think they did it very, very well.
I give Men in Black 3: 6.5/10
That being said, if you are a fan of the Men in Black franchise wait for this movie and rent it on Netflix or where ever you can now that there aren’t any movie rental places. See it if you love MIB, but it’s not necessary to watch. Also, I’m pretty sure that if I EVER hear somone say “Let’s agree to disagree” ever again, I’m going to punch them in the throat. Borris was SO annoying!
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