Let's set aside the sure-to-be-common question of whether anyone actually wanted another Men in Black sequel in the first place. The answer is, "No, they didn't," but No. 3 is here, and funnily enough, it's mostly painless. Of course, the MIB franchise was never much more than that: painless, and somewhat better for it. For all the gazillions spent on their elaborate CGI effects, the films never really demanded your attention; they were just kind of there, more tolerated than beloved. But in an age when every wannabe tentpole indulges in expansive running times and self-important grabs at seizing the cultural spotlight, the idea of a movie that feels like a breezy afterthought is strangely welcome.
Maybe that's because MIB3 actually manages to capture the playful inconsequentiality of the earlier films. This time out, intergalactic invasion-prevention specialists Agents K (Tommy Lee Jones) and J (Will Smith) are faced with an unspeakably ruthless and powerful being named Boris the Animal (Jemaine Clement). This supervillain breaks out of a prison on the moon and travels back in time to 1969 to kill the younger Agent K (Josh Brolin, doing an uncanny Tommy Lee Jones imitation), preparing Earth to be overrun and devoured by an alien race.
Agent J travels back in time as well, and after a couple of obvious gags about being black in 1969, he locates the young K and ... well, you get the idea. Both helping and complicating matters is Griffin (Michael Stuhlbarg), another alien being who possesses the key to preventing Boris' invasion, yet can also see all time and possible universes as one infinite continuum — thus allowing him (in a remarkably funny conceit) to contemplate multiple possibilities to any situation. This leads to a strange but welcome interlude involving the Mets' 1969 World Series win, which even this avowed baseball hater found surprisingly touching.
Part of the joke here is that Jones is barely in the film, and MIB3 gets a lot of mileage out of Brolin's ability to poke fun at the older actor's stoic mannerisms while giving him some nice, softer edges. (Then again, the presence of these two No Country for Old Men stars, not to mention A Serious Man's Stuhlbarg, might make you wish you were watching a Coen Brothers movie instead.) Brolin and Smith play well off each other, and director Barry Sonnenfeld (another Coens veteran) knows well enough to give us plenty of moments between them. The '60s-specific gags are mostly obvious, though one bit about Andy Warhol (Bill Hader) actually being a Men in Black agent in disguise is pretty funny.
MIB3 practically demands that you don't think too hard about it. Should we be bothered by the fact that the lovely Emma Thompson, who is only 53, is played by 30-year-old Alice Eve in the 1969 scenes? And what to make of the film's bizarre final revelation, which flies in the face of what happened in the first film? It's as if the movie knows you don't remember the earlier films — and even if you do, you don't much care.
Amazingly, this tossed-off quality serves MIB3 well. It's a rare franchise that isn't pompous enough to pretend it has a "mythology." Even Smith looks like he's having a good time, although his first film in four years carries a slight whiff of desperation after the howling embarrassment of Seven Pounds. He seems mostly content to sit back and let Stuhlbarg and Brolin carry the day. We should take our cue from him and just sit back and enjoy the show. If we bother to even show up, that is.
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