The ‘Men in Black’ trilogy is the epitome of a summer blockbuster. Audiences need only sit back and enjoy while Will Smith and his craggy partner save Earth, cracking jokes in between vaporizing aliens.

‘Men in Black III’ has the same formula as its prequels but with one extra element – time travel. MIB did what many a sequel has tried before: When one can’t think of a good storyline, send the characters back in time. In this case, though, director Barry Sonnenfeld played his cards right.

The latest installment is light-years better than the disappointing ‘Men in Black II.’ It finds Agents J (Smith) and K (Tommy Lee Jones) tracking an assassin named Boris the Animal (Jemaine Clement), who recently escaped from a secret MIB moon prison where K locked him up more than 40 years earlier. Then, Boris gets his hands on a time-travel device. He warps back to 1969 to kill K and stop him from putting a protective shield around the planet. Cue present-day alien invasion.

With his mentor erased from existence and Earth on the brink of destruction, Agent J travels back to the summer of 1969 to save the world once again. There, he meets a young Agent K (Josh Brolin) and they set out to find both past and future Boris before they alter history.

MIB is a fast-paced thrill ride packed with clever quips and moments of lightheartedness. At its heart, it has always been a buddy comedy, with Smith’s star power and bombastic personality balancing out Jones’ deadpan sarcasm.

Enter the scene-stealing Brolin, who steps seamlessly into Jones’ shoes, down to the signature stone-faced stare down. He breathes life into Agent K’s character while maintaining a completely believable persona. In addition, his hilarious chemistry with Smith is what blends the time-travel storyline with the narrative. In one memorable scene, J and young K interrogate an alien by using his detachable head as a bowling ball.

Smith, the most bankable movie star in America, makes a triumphant return to the role that made his career. From ranting to a group of neuralyzed pedestrians about turning off their cellphones on airplanes to wrestling with a gigantic alien fish in a Chinese restaurant, he’s right at home in the role of Agent J.

After employing a time-travel device with the simplest instructions of all time – jump off a building and hit the button when the light turns green – Smith finds himself in another comedic playground: late ’60s New York City. He works in some clever jibes about the civil rights era and impersonates a valet to steal a convertible. Smith milks the fish-out-of-water humor for all it’s worth, even threatening to ‘pimp-slap the shiznit’ out of undercover MIB agent Andy Warhol (Bill Hader from ‘Saturday Night Live’).

Other notable appearances include Emma Thompson as new MIB Chief Agent O. She’s introduced to the audience with maybe the most unconventional eulogy, spoken in an alien tongue, for Agent Zed (Rip Torn). Will Arnett cameos as J’s touchy-feely replacement partner, Agent AA. He pops up on an amusing elevator ride to MIB headquarters, but because J hasn’t realized the timeline was altered, he just thinks a strange man is babbling in his ear.

‘Men in Black III’ surely won’t win any awards, but it’s a fun, if somewhat mindless, way to spend two hours. This third incarnation of the franchise proved Smith can still carry a blockbuster after a few years off-screen (his last major film was 2008’s ‘Hancock’), and the time-travel plot rewards fans with an interesting backstory. Plus, they work the Apollo 11 launch into the story.

So give your brain the night off, and watch while America’s favorite secret-secret agents return to blast some more alien baddies into goo.

rjmarvin@syr.edu

Published on May 31, 2012 at 12:00 pm

Contact Rob: rjmarvin@syr.edu