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BluRay/DVD Reviews

MEN IN BLACK 3

By • Dec 16th, 2012 •

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For me, Will Smith kinda laid there for the first act. Then, when he goes back in time to 1969 to head off a disaster involving the death of his partner, Agent K (Tommy Lee Jones), his performance suddenly bursts into creative life. Line deliveries are inspired, body language a delight. At times he seemed to be doing a tribute to Oliver Hardy, which I only mention to illustrate how far afield he reachs to produce some of his wondrous physical effects. I think it’s one of the better performances of the year, gone unnoticed because it was buried in a franchise.

Traveling back in time is such a popular concept for parody and inventive fun. Nicholas Meyer is great at it, and also at going forward. In STAR TREK IV, he plops the crew of the enterprise in 1985, to great effect. That was my favorite film of 1986. In TIME AFTER TIME he puts H.G. Wells and Jack the Ripper in London Circa 1979. And in THE SEVEN-PER-CENT SOLUTION, he paired up Arthur Conan Doyle and Sigmund Freud. Wish he’d done more of those. Wish he’d been called in to pen some of MIB3. Not that anything’s wrong with what Etan Cohen did, but I could have used even more, particularly of the sequence where Smith and Josh Brolin as a young Agent K crash Andy Warhol’s party.

Such scenes as the one above totally revive the franchise after a lack-luster Part 2. The effects, as always, are stupendous and great fun. Just as, in part one, Michael Jackson is offhandedly ID’d as an alien (and an obviously not too-well disguised one), here we get a glancing acknowledgement of Lady Gaga as a similar, poorly disguised imitation of a human.

The BluRay is the way to go, as not only are the effects displayed to best advantage, but the surround sound is a joy to be immersed in.

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