Men in Black III Review- By Michael Carlisle

 Title: Men in Black III
Year: 2012
Country: U.S
Language: English

Rare is the sequel that is far better than the original.  15 years after the original and 10 years after the subpar sequel, a talking pug couldn't save that disaster of a film, Men in Black III decides to up the ante by introducing time travel into this franchise. The film history of time travel has been filled with a lot of flops (Burton's Planet of the Apes) and a lot of gold (Back to the Future Trilogy) so it's completely understandable if you were worried that this film might be a flop due to its subject. Along with the "flop fear" in time travel movies there may also be great confusion due to huge plot holes, inconsistencies and unanswered paradoxes. I assure you that Men In Black III does a very good job at making their time travel as less confusing as possible.

Incase you are not familiar with the premise of the Men in Black Trilogy, because 15 years have passed since the original began, I will reintroduce you.There is a secret agency assigned to keeping track of all aliens on Earth. They dress in black and thus are known as the "Men in Black" even though there are a few women in this secret service agency. In fact one of the head supervisors is a woman, so I'm not quite sure why they are called "Men in Black" in the first place.Whatever, they're undercover even though they dress exactly like secret service agents...so they're not "really" undercover.

Under the supervision of female supervisor Agent O (Emma Thompson). Veteran Agent K (Tommy Lee Jones) and his witty sidekick Agent J (Will Smith) a critical emergency occurs when Borris "The Animal" (Jermaine Clement), a wildly ugly alien, escaped a maximum security prison...located on the moon! He is the last surviving member of his race, he's not only mad because he can't reproduce but because Agent K shot off one of his arms in the past. His solution? To go back to the past and kill Agent K before it can happen. You can already see the time paradox.  Frankly if I was him I'd also save the last female of my soon to be extinct species, but ok, his arm is more important. Guess he's not that smart either.

Men in Black III simplifies time travel complexity.Agent J  tries to travel back in time to prevent Boris the Animal from killing K. This results in a Young K existing in the same time period as J, who is the same age he started as, so the old fella and his sidekick are now equals. Infact Agent J should rank slightly higher than Agent K, but Agent J isn't technically a "Man in Black" yet.

The star of this film is not Will Smith, but Josh Brolin. Brolin plays the young Agent K and is uncannily like Tommy Lee Jones. The way Brolin talks, his facial features and even the way he walks resemble Tommy Jones so much that you forget it's a different actor playing the young Agent K. If Brolin's performance as George Bush in W didn't convince you that he was a great actor, then his performance in this film definitley should. Another interesting actor in this film is Michael Stuhlberg. He plays Gizmo, which is this films main comic relief character.He's an alien who has the ability to see all the possible variations resulting from various events during time travel. "Uh oh" he keeps saying "This is the one where..." I would love to see more of him if there are any more Men in Black films, I'm glad they decided to get rid of the talking pug.

In conclusion, while there is a plot hole resulting from a fight during the spaceship launch on Cape Kennedy, how could millions have not seen them? Men in Black III was a rather simple but fun film that had an intensely emotional closing scene which added great depth to the characters. Even if you were turned off by the first two films, I still say that you shouldn't miss out on this enjoyable ride. 3.5/5