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Men In Black 3

‘Men in Black III’ comes a decade later after ‘Men in Black II’, despite of the amount of time that separate them and it being part of the franchise, it stands well on its on. Clearly director Barry Sonnenfeld still knows what works for Men in Black and its audience. The special effects are phenomenal; the detail given to every alien character is outstanding, so much so that the realness of it can easily gross one out. The screening I went to was in 3D and I can say that the 3D is pretty good; the shots taken off the ledge of New York City’s Chrysler building made me a bit dizzy. The film does a good job at encompassing its predecessors without making a person unfamiliar with them feel lost. This is definitely a family film to watch during Memorial Day Weekend.

In this chapter of the Men in Black, Agent J (Will Smith) is forced to travel to the early years of the agency in 1969, to prevent an alien known as Boris the Animal (Jermaine Clement) from killing his partner K (Tommy Lee Jones) and at the same time saving the world from a future invasion and destruction. Agent J has 24 hours to prevent history from changing; he gets to meet and deal with the younger version of Agent K (Josh Brolin), and also discovers other secrets about the agency.

There are many cameos in the film, but some of the most talked about such as Lady Gaga or Justin Bieber are barely noticeable. Although Smith still has the same smart mouth as in the past two films, here he’s lost his childish comedy, which means a lot of funny moments the others delivered have been lost. The emotional ties are stronger than the comedy, which perhaps won’t work much for its target audience as the film begins to feel a bit long, the beginning of the film is too fast paced and then it seems to go in slow motion for a while.  

The best part about time traveling were the incorporations of Coney Island during the 60’s and Bill Hader as Andy Warhol, there’s many clever historic references here. As mentioned above the special effects were worth the $215 million dollars spent in making the film. We can see this on Boris The Animal, the villain’s presence and voice are perfectly horrific. My favorite character was young Agent K; Brolin is a flawless impersonator and he picked up the mannerisms and everything else from the older version of his character as if they were his own.

PG-13 is a perfect rating for this film, as it might get too convoluted and fast paced for a younger audience anyway. As a sequel this film adds on to the story and doesn’t damage it in any way, which very few sequels manage to do. Since there’s consideration of perhaps a ‘Men in Black 4’, which is not a surprise seeing that there’s still plenty of material to work from, other actors should be considered since both of the main charters seemed a bit tired in their roles. This will be a fun film for parents who enjoyed the past films and teens that might be enjoying their first ‘Men in Black’ adventure.