Review of Men in Black 3 (2012) by Clarisesamuels — 21 Jul 2013

Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones are back after a decade, and most movie-goers barely remember the plot for MIB 2. But it doesn't matter, the third installment refreshes your memory and adds a whole new dimension--the past. Time-travel movies are always interesting and always problematic because of the classic paradoxes that are caused by time travel: 1) the predestination paradox and the similar bootstrap paradox, where going back into time causes the future to change, creating an endless loop (e.g. I know a secret that I whisper to President Lincoln after traveling to the past, and he uses the secret to win the Civil War, which leads to the modern US and my birth, where I learn a secret that I take back to whisper to President Lincoln, and so on); 2) the grandfather paradox, where visiting the past might cause the death of your grandfather or some other event that will prevent your birth, in which case you were never born and you can't travel back to the past.

This film tries to address that--Agent K's nemesis, Boris the Animal is in jail on the moon, one arm shot off by K, and after 40 years of imprisonment, Boris breaks out and he wants to go back to 1969, the day K shot his arm off and arrested him, to kill K before he loses his arm. Boris gets a time-travel device from a geeky genius, goes back to 1969 and kills K. Suddenly the present changes--K disappears, a young family lives in his apartment, and at headquarters, there's a memorial bust in K's name. But Will Smith's J gets caught in a time warp; he's the only one in the present who remembers the old history. He goes to work and suddenly finds he has a new partner. His boss, O, played by Emma Thompson, shows him the memorial bust to the great K who died 40 years ago. Agent J is confused and he craves chocolate milk, which he steals from toddlers, a classic symptom of a man who is caught in a time warp. So J visits the geek, gets his time machine, and goes back to 1969 just before Boris's arm gets shot off to prevent Boris from killing K so that the past will get set right and so will the future. There's a psychic character in 1969 played by Michael Stuhlbarg, who is capable of seeing alternate futures, which is more or less being offered as an explanation for the time-travel paradox.

Back in 1969, Agent K gets to comment on old-fashioned racist views. When he gets pulled over for car theft, he tells the cops, “Just because you see a black man driving a new car doesn't mean he stole it,” even though he did but that was incidental and should not be used to reinforce racist beliefs. Back in the past, J meets the young K played by Josh Brolin who gives a hilarious and perfect rendition of the young Tommy Lee Jones. But the young K still has a heart. “What happened to you?” J keeps asking. “I don't know because it hasn't happened yet” is always K's reply. The film is charming, funny, and visually entertaining. We don't get to see enough of Emma Thompson, whose best line is when she gives a eulogy at an agent's memorial service and quotes saddened words spoken by an alien in his native language. Her screeches, squeaks and shrieks are incomprehensible but clearly denote a grieving alien. There could have been a few more laughs to make this film perfect and perhaps fewer people getting killed by Boris's scorpion, but it's still a lot of fun and hugely entertaining.