I started reviewing Men in Black III in my head whilst I began watching it; It began a little something like this..."It is notoriously difficult to make a good third instalment of a film franchise, or Threequel...if you will. But I hedged my bets as I payed my £6 and sat through trailers, and that Haribo advert with the 'cute' kid of whom I hold, in no un-certain terms, in contempt. Dissapointingly, it became apparent that was in vast superiority to the film. In simpler terms, Men in Black III is shite"
I came to that conclusion after approximately half an hour, allow me to elaborate as to why:
-10 years after the second installment, most people would be against the idea of a threequel. As it appears, so was Tommy Lee Jones. TLJ in the last two instalments played a surly gentleman who, nobody could argue, hated his job as an agent and only did it for the money, and charmingly so. In this 3rd film, he was a gentleman who looked like he hated his job as an actor in this film. It appears a great deal of the $375,000,000 was spent on dragging him back to star in this film.
-Emma Thompson, or perhaps her character. She played the typical female agent, bossy and rude and... detestable. I would comment on her attempt at an English accent, but as an English woman it appears it was not an accent; just an irritation.
-So, the idea behind the MiB story is that aliens live among us but with clever disguises so we wouldn't ever know...charming my, at the time, 6 year old mind. In this 3rd they dropped the idea; One of the aliens in this film hides his centipede-esque body, with an apron. I mean, WHAT IF THE WIND BLOWS, WHAT IF YOU LOOK AT HIM FROM BEHIND. Infact, several sat in a chinese restaurant as aliens...0/10 for effort.
-The antagonist, a Boglodite villain from the moon. You think that sounds like a typical villain, he is. Un-interesting and entirely dull. Enough said.
-A minor one, the pop culture version of the 60s..pieced together by peoples impressions of what it was like. One of the most notable is a hippy girl giving the 'bad guy' a flower and saying 'make love not war' and a 60s party where everyone is in tie dye and being weird. Just, no.
-The final one, the aliens. Not only were the aliens badly disguised, they were poorly made. Perhaps if this film was a low budget, indie film... I could let the poorly made costumes slip. As this film is, one of the most expensive films ever made I feel the 1970s Dr Who style monsters were tacky and un-convincing.
So, by the sounds of this review... I hated this film. Infact, I come out of this film somewhat charmed. Perhaps it's the characters? Michael Stuhlbarg playing Griffin, who occupies every dimension and outcome at the same time...who, much like the protagonist of Source Code tells the future just as it happens like "who steps through the door in 3 seconds and knocks over this coffee table"with such child like wonderment. Or Will Smith, who is just my hero. If you need telling how great Will Smith is, you haven't seen Fresh Prince of Bel Air. The un-expected emotion in this film?
No. As the 2nd film came out, Burger King gave away free toys with meals for the film...one being a cheap plastic nuraliser, as Will calls it "The mind wipey flasher". I took that everywhere with me, like Andy has woody and buzz... I had a nuraliser, which probably explains my nerdy-ness to this day. The fact is, MiBIII is part of a charming franchise. Granted, the funny moments could be funnier. The emotional, more so. At the end of the day, what matters is if I enjoyed this film. I loved it.
It may also be worthy of not, upon googling 'MiB' to find the exact budget... the top search was 'Is MiB real?' Looks like some people were convinced by the alien CGI.
