We here at The Grog love seeing and approving or scrutinizing
movies of all genres.
Those of you keeping score at home
may have noticed that The Grog has done six movie reviews (not counting
the one about athletes in movies, didn’t quite think it fit the criteria).
Well, now is lucky movie review number seven.
Last
Thursday night, my esteemed colleagues and I were hanging out with nothing to
do other than watch in horror as C.G.I. ruined Star Wars episode IV in high
definition. Eventually, we decided it was time to stimulate the economy and go
see Men in Black III.
I thought there was some reason to
be skeptical. Primarily because the movie choice came from the same esteemed
colleague who roped us into seeing Battleship as opposed to The Dictator
or The Avengers.
Also, I’m not an enormous fan of
sequels. Sure not every franchise that generates a sequel is as atrocious as Cadyshack
II, Batman and Robin, Major League II, or The Matrix
Reloaded. Perhaps there are even some good sequels out there, like The Godfather
Part II and Star Wars Episode V.
However, the delicate line between
making a legitimate movie franchise and producing bat dung because the first
film did so well is often crossed by Hollywood .
Some people just don’t know when to take a perfectly good movie and leave it at
that.
Still, Men in Black III did
well in the box office as soon as it came out. Rotten Tomatoes gave it a 67%
approval rating, and nostalgia seeped from the trailers. Just like that, here
came the men in black.
I must say, the Men in Black came,
saw, and temporarily restored my faith in sequels.
The story seems reasonable enough
for a movie about aliens. The beginning is an extremely linear sequence of
fight aliens, wipe memories of bystanders, and go show off how cool their base
is. Then the ever popular time travel wrinkle that seems to make an appearance
in movies for better or worse.
(If you shake your head right to left, you can keep up with it)
Shortly after we get to the meat of
the plot: it’s up to Agent J (Will Smith, just in case somebody hasn’t seen any
of these movies) to go back in time and make sure that his partner Agent K
(Tommy Lee Jones, again just in case somebody hasn’t seen any of these movies,
in which case you lived a very deprived childhood) doesn’t get killed by K’s
old nemesis Boris the Animal (Jemaine Clement).
Like every former installment of
the franchise, J runs into some solid comedic moments. I won’t go into the details
too much, but the first encounter between a younger agent K and J is humorous.
Perhaps the best part of the movie
is that there is a surprising amount of emotional character development throughout
the film. The movie takes us into the distinct relationship of J and K. How K
is a distant partner to J throughout their time together. Also, the
relationship differences between younger K and J grew based on work and became
more personal than it did in J’s present.
The movie
continued with Boris the Animal making a trip back in time to stop J from
killing Boris in the past. When future Boris makes contact with J and K, the
plot introduces Griffin (Michael Stulhbarg),
a fifth dimensional alien who can see every possible future before it happens.
(So many Universes, so little time)
Another thing
that MIBIII did well was that it essentially avoided the ‘boss fight ending’
that has become a staple in Hollywood .
Don’t get me wrong, there was a final confrontation between J,K and both Boris
the Animals, yet that is not the lasting image the movie leaves its audience. I
won’t spoil what happens because it’s a pretty important detail to the film,
but it does answer a very important question the movie raises.
As I
mentioned, I was not expecting much because of my distain for many sequels, but
Men in Black III temporarily restored my hope that sequels are worth
going out to see in theaters as opposed to waiting until they show up on
Netflix.
I left the movie more than
satisfied. The action and comedy were not in the foreground in the movie,
though the movie didn’t suffer because of it.
It’s not a terribly long movie. It
runs 1 hour and 45 minutes, so you have time to take your girl out for dissert
after.
There is a healthy gap between the
biggest strengths and weaknesses in the movie. The character development between
the protagonists and the cerebral aspect of the infinite futures were the highlights
of the movie. The biggest weakness was that the time travel concept has been
overdone. Still, not every time travel movie is Back to the Future, so I
will cut this movie some slack.
If I had to rate the movie, I’d
give it an 8.2 out of 10. Entertaining, and a lot better than I thought it was
going to be. I just hope they get off this gravy train when it’s clearly at it’s
last stop. Then again, there is a better chance I can get Kristen Stewart
an Academy Award, so I’d better get on that.
