The Sci-Fi Action Sequel On Disney+ That’s More Fun Than Anyone Remembers
Far better than we had any right to expect.
It was ten years between the release of Men in Black II and Men in Black III, and the world changed a lot during those years. This threequel addresses none of that, choosing instead to leap into a time travel plot which was almost certainly thought up entirely to let them replace the increasingly elderly Tommy Lee Jones with a younger, more spry actor for all the more action-heavy parts of the film.
That wrongheaded approach to movie-making should have ruined everything about this third movie in the franchise, but it didn’t. Men in Black III is the best this franchise produced outside of the first movie which wowed audiences way back in 1997.
It works in no small part because Josh Brolin is really, really good at playing a younger and less cynical (only slightly) version of Agent K. The movie begins with Tommy Lee Jones and ends with him, but Brolin’s chemistry with Will Smith carries the middle. Even though there’s another guy playing one half of the duo, the old chemistry between J and K has never been better.
As always, the Men in Black world is wildly creative, filled with alien monsters and weirdos beyond reckoning. In this one, we get a look at the way the secret, alien policing Men in Black organization operated in the sixties when J must travel back in time to stop an escaped alien convict from killing his partner.
They don’t get too period-specific here (though it all ties in to the moon landing), and that’s fine because aliens are weird no matter what decade they’re setting in. It’s hard to notice hippies and old cars roaming the streets of New York when there’s a giant alien fish flapping around on the sidewalk.
The alien creatures are infinitely inventive and effective here. The best of the bunch is the most subtle, a bookish little man named Griffin, who seems like anyone else, but with the ability to see all possible futures all at once. He steals scenes like a kinder, gentler Mork from Orc, giving the movie a much-needed boost in all the moments when it might otherwise have run out of gas.
All that really matters with a Men in Black film is whether it’s a lot of fun, and the answer here is a resounding yes. But along with that, there’s also something smarter in writer Etan Cohen’s script of yet unseen realities and places where the past and the future connect.
This is exactly what you’d hope a science fiction script written by the mind behind Tropic Thunder might look like. Thanks to Cohen’s writing, Brolin’s performance, and the always reliable Will Smith, Men in Black III is far better than we had any right to expect.
MEN IN BLACK III REVIEW SCORE
Men in Black III is now available to stream free to subscribers on Disney+ through their new Hulu on Disney+ service. It’s also available for rental on streaming apps like Amazon Prime Video.
