To be honest I wasn't particularly excited about the release of MIB3. I'd seen the other two films when they came out years ago and neither left an impression. However the rating on IMDb was decent so I thought why the hell not? Yesterday my husband and I went to check it out. We went in with very little expectations, no memory of what had happened in the previous films and no idea what the plot would be. We just wanted to be entertained.
So here's the thing. I didn't hate the film, but I can't say I really liked it either. The plot is interesting enough. Boris the Animal (Jermaine Clement), a disgusting alien who a younger Agent K (Josh Brolin) put away fourty years earlier on a luna prison has escaped. Boris decides to go back in time to kill the young Agent K before said agent chops off Boris' arm. In the present Agent J (Will Smith) and the older Agent K (Tommy Lee Jones) continue on MIB business until one day Agent K disappears, from the earth, from time and from everyone but Agent J's memory. Agent J then has to go back in time and save Agent K, and also catch Boris who is determined to destroy Earth.
Josh Brolin did a wonderful job at stepping into Agent K's shoes. He mimicked Tommy Lee Jones' K to perfection. He showed a new side to K, a more humorous, approachable side. This is slightly confusing for Agent J who doesn't understand how K could be so cold and detached in the future when he was so different in the past. You really don't need to have seen the other films in order to follow this story. Both Agent J and K have a bizarre relationship. They seem to care a lot about each other yet in some ways they barely know each other. J would love to know more but K is hesitant. Just before K disappears in the future he seems to want to tell J something but never gets the chance. We find out what this something is later in the film, which adds a nice twist to the story and to their relationship.
Unfortunately the other characters don't really get a chance to be explored. Smith's J is meant to be the driving force of the plot but appears to be more of a passenger. I had expected more humor in the story. Smith had some quirky moments but I noticed that the audience laughed more in The Avengers than in this film. I think this is partly because the script wasn't very entertaining and also because we didn't get a chance to get to know the characters. Clement's Boris was deliciously grotesque but lacked depth. I like when we get to know a villain, their goals, and the extent they will go to in order to reach those goals. In other words I like to know the stakes. We didn't get that in this film. Boris' reasons for going to the past to kill K were a little weak. He shows up throughout the film at random points but he almost feels like an after thought. This pains me to say because I really love Clement, he's a fellow kiwi and I daily sing songs from Flight of the Conchords. Unfortunately his character was written without depth, and although he gave all he could to it Boris somehow fell through the cracks.
Obviously this is not a film we are meant to take too seriously. It's a fluff film, there to distract, make you forget about work, the kids, that crack in the bathroom sink that needs fixing. This is not a painful film to watch by any means. It flows well, has a beginning, middle and a somewhat satisfying end. However I had expected it to pack a bit more of a punch considering the last in the series was ten years ago.
Perhaps if this film came out a couple of years after the last I would have enjoyed it more. Unfortunately for them, but luckily for us, directors like Chris Nolan and Joss Whedon have raised the bar. We don't just want to be distracted from the bathroom sink anymore. We want to be entertained.
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