Men In Black, Will Smith
★★★☆☆

<Review by: Farzad Mistry>

Directed by Barry Sonnenfeld. Starring Will Smith, Tommy Lee Jones, Josh Brolin, Emma Thompson, Jemaine Clement.

It’s been almost ten years since we last saw Agent J (Will Smith) and Agent K (Tommy Lee Jones) in action and to be honest nothing much has changed between them. J is still the wise cracking smart mouth and K is still the straight faced strong silent type. This dynamic has always made the duo enjoyable to watch.

This particular instalment in the Men In Black series involves time travel and the now apparently mandatory alien invasion of Earth (from Transformers: Dark of the Moon to The Avengers it seems to be becoming a requirement for Hollywood Sci-fi blockbusters). Now I am personally not a big fan of time travel movies because they always tend to complicate the story line but fortunately this film kept it relatively simple. As for the alien invasion even the alien ships are starting to look alike in most of these films.

The film starts out with a particularly nasty villain named Boris the Animal (Jemaine Clement) being broken out of the MIB’s maximum security lunar prison by one of his apparent fans (Nicole Scherzinger in a guest appearance). Boris was apprehended by K 40 years earlier just after he shot Boris’ arm off. Obviously Boris has been plotting his revenge for the last 40 years and now travels back in time to kill K before he could arrest him or shoot his arm off. If Boris’ plan works he will not only kill K but also prevent him from obtaining a secret weapon that would protect the Earth from an alien invasion.

So now its upto J to save the day. He travels back to 1969 to save the Earth and the younger Agent  K (Josh Brolin). Josh Brolin does a great job of imitating Tommy Lee Jones’ mannerisms as Agent K, their physical resemblance ofcourse helps alot. There are plenty of funny references to people and events of 1969 giving parts of the film a nice retro feel.

On the whole it was enjoyable to watch although in my opinion it didn’t need to be in 3D, the movie has great visuals and I am sure it would’ve looked just as good in 2D. Fans of the franchise will probably appreciate that it doesn’t deviate from the standard MIB formula. Even though Sony forged ahead with this film without a complete script, the movie has all the makings of a good summer film. It probably won’t be the best film this summer but it definitely isn’t the worst.

 

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