Men In Black 3 – an Off Kilter Review

Sometimes, I really like going to a theater to see a movie.  Especially to a pre-screening of a movie.  There is definitely an “energy” for lack of a better word when the whole place is full of die-hard fans all cheering, laughing, crying appropriately and let’s face it, if you are willing to stand in a line that wraps around the theater for sometimes HOURS to see a movie, it’s got to be more than just the fact that you are cheap.  That’s how I felt when I went to see The Avengers a while back.

Like I was saying.SOMETIMES, I really like going to a theater to see a movie.  Men In Black 3 was not one of those movies.

In all fairness, I wasn’t expecting much.  I try to keep my expectations really low anytime I see a new movie to be honest.  Even with my low expectations… this movie still kinda fell short for me.

I will say this.  MIB3 WAS better than the 2nd in this trilogy.  So – that said, if you liked the second one, you will love the 3rd.  It wasn’t as good as the first one… but sequels rarely are with a few exceptions.

I love the witty repartee between Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones any day of the week and there were some funny lines that had me chuckling… As a young Agent K, Josh Brolin was a PERFECT choice and I can’t imagine a better fit there.

The premise is not all that original… but what is nowadays I suppose – Agent J (Will Smith) has to travel back in time to 1969 to stop an alien from killing Agent K (Tommy Lee Jones) which would alter the world as we know it and Oh yeah – has to do all of this without Agent K realizing who Agent J is… Didn’t we already do this?  Like 3 times already with the Back to the Future back in the 80’s?  The main difference is that there are aliens involved.

One of my favorite characters was Griffin – played by Michael Stuhlbarg – an alien who can see all possible outcomes in the future.  There was something endearing about his character.

There was also a scene towards the end of the movie that was heart-warming and even a bit moving… which was completely out of character for the rest of the movie.  I saw it coming – it was predictable… and yet, still pissed me off a bit.

The movie, while it had more than it’s fair share of slow dragging moments, isn’t that long – under 2 hours in fact.

Bottom line, if you are a fan of the franchise, you might enjoy the somewhat campy humor in the flick.  I’m not sure that seeing it in 3D adds much unless you want the experience of exploding alien guts coming at you, so you might consider waiting for Red Box availability.  It’s rated PG-13 so, you know your kids – you can decide if it’s something for them to watch or not… I don’t remember much that would make me prevent my kids from it to be honest.  Of course their is the good ol Sci-fi violence (hello – already mentioned exploding guts) and maybe there was some language but probably nothing they haven’t heard before.

Also – loved the opening scene… when Boris’s (the villan – played by Jemaine Clement who I loved in Flight of the Conchords btw) girlfriend goes to see him in prison – she wears these KILLER thigh high, high heeled black boots with red soles – yeah.  I covet those boots and will be on the look out for a pair of my own very soon.  That probably wasn’t the take-away they were hoping for though.