The Men Are Back

Rating: 6/10 (8 June 2013)

When an interstellar evil mastermind Boris the Animal (Jemaine Clement) escapes from LunaMax, a moon-based maximum security prison, he returns to Earth to seek both revenge on his captor Agent K (Tommy Lee Jones) as well as a means to bring about a Boglodyte invasion. In order to do so Boris steals an illegal time jump machine and travels back in time to eliminate the younger version of Agent K (Josh Brolin). In succeeding in doing so the future alternates with only Agent J (Will Smith) remaining aware that the time-line has been modified. Thus Agent J retreads the path of Boris and goes back in time to avert the death of his friend and the inevitability of Armageddon.
Lacking the novelty of the first episodes of the series, "Men in Black" remains one of the few buddy movies with true effortless charm between the main protagonists. The opposites of Tommy Lee Jones and Will Smith collide with sparkling results, thus making them a pure joy to behold, even more so when the comedy keeps in tow with the quality of their interaction. The risk of replacing Tommy Lee Jones with Josh Brolin as Smith's partner was therefore significant. But Brolin was truly remarkable delivering Agent K with aplomb (nailing each mannerism to perfection), to the extent that I actually checked whether Lee Jones and Brolin were maybe in fact related. Personal traits of Agent K are replicated with ease, whilst the appeal of the K and J pairing remained intact.
Nonetheless, despite high levels of enjoyment, "Men in Black 3" came off a bit stale in the post-Archive X era, reusing certain motives making the movie feel somewhat outdated, as if an attempt to revive a bygone era. This naturally has nothing to do with creature design or special effects, which are first-rate throughout. Barry Sonnenfeld delivers a movie, which is exactly as promised, and herein lies the main issue: the lack of adventure and freshness, which made the first two parts such memorable popcorn flicks. That said "Men in Black 3" delivers an unexpected emotional wallop with its story, which comes as a surprise, but nicely brings the movie to a well-deserved close.