Appropriately Shiny and Slick, But Never Approaches the Magic of the Original

Rating: 6/10 (10 September 2012)

The pieces are there, and they're moving in the right ways, but this long-awaited revival just doesn't feel right. That's partially due to a crushing lack of Tommy Lee Jones, who's relegated to a mere cameo appearance, but more thoroughly to a lack of conviction and casual, happenstance tone. It's okay for a comedy to be this thoroughly jokey and loose, but the formula that worked for this franchise in the past was a tight balance of those lighter moments with sharp, dramatic action sets. MIB3 may go through those motions, but the emotional punch that its predecessor had delivered so easily is almost completely absent here. Though the vast majority of the film is set in the free love sixties, the atmosphere also remains very modern, like attending a themed costume party where the host didn't get the memo. Excepting a few very easy sight gags and the eyeball-rolling location of the film's grand climax, this just doesn't seem to make much effort to ground itself in that era. Josh Brolin works an uncanny Jones impression during these scenes, but that act falls strangely flat when the real deal himself was on-screen only moments before, and in this case there's really no substitute for the real thing. Quirky and fun, but terribly thin and uncertain... worth watching for the effects and frequent nods to its genre-mates, but it's really no better than the underwhelming Men in Black II.