Review: Men in Black III- Etan Cohen redeems the series

Men in Black III opened nation-wide today in 2D, 3D and IMAX. If you love a goofy world of imaginary aliens, time travel, alternate realities and Josh Brolin on his A-game; the you will love MIB3.

Etan Cohen of Tropic Thunder credit wrote the screenplay to MIB3 and you forget that it has been 14 years since the first film. Will Smith at 44 wasn’t running as fast as he was as a 30-years old. Like the premisses of the MIB franchise a massive threat is going to destroy the Earth and it is up to Agent J and K to stop the threat. What makes MIB3 a fun film is that MIB2 was awful and they didn’t do any of the stupid sequel crap that makes sequels really bad. What they did do was write a decent film with a solid cast and E.T. worthy special effects. And on top of it all they go back in time!? Time travel stories never work well because there are giant loop holes. What Cohen does with his writing is walk right through the loop holes and tugs at your emotion.

As always with a MIB film the supporting cast is very good with Emma Thompson, Bill Hader and Michael Stuhlbarg as Griffin the all reality seeing alien. Hader plays a very upset Andy Warhol with a few jokes about the future. There was a little disappointment not having Rip Torn in the film but if you go to Torn’s Wikipedia page you’ll understand why he wasn’t asked back.

What didn’t work for the film was the villain Boris the Animal played by Jemaine Clement. And what really didn’t work was when there were two of them because one went back in time. There was something wrong with how they animated his voice. Also, his eyes are covered up and the lack of eyes gave the character a lack of emotion.

All and all, take the kids and enjoy a Star Trek alien loaded time travel adventure that might not come around again.

Men in Black III review – 8.5/10

Matthew Sardo

A 20-something trapped in the body of a 30-something describes me perfectly. I have taken ownership of my dorkdom and launched it to a whole new level with my love of comic books, movies, hockey, scotch, mashed potatoes and Chicago.