NOT using the
panel discussions of the most recent World Science Fiction Convention in Dublin,
Ireland in August 2019 (to which I be unable to go (until I retire from education)),
I would jump off, jump on, rail against, and shamelessly agree with the BRIEF
DESCRIPTION given in the pdf copy of the Program Guide. But not today. This explanation
is reserved for when I dash “off topic”, sometimes reviewing movies, sometimes
reviewing books, and other times taking up the spirit of a blog an old friend of
mine used to keep called THE RANTING ROOM…
Eighteen years ago, The Daughter and I went to see Men In Black 3. I personally think the MIB franchise may be suffering from the STAR TREK Curse -- only in this case, it's the ODD numbered movies that are great...
My daughter and I wrote an article
together for a blog I was part of then. My wife and I watched the first in the series a few nights ago and will likely proceed to this again. Even the reviewers liked it. So I guess, in retrospect, The
Daughter and I did pretty well!
So, without further ado, I present this blast from the past:
Let
me just say that while my daughter and I share a voracious reading habit, our
reading MATERIAL is wildly different. We’ve been known to cross over into each
other’s territory, but for the most part, I read and write science fiction and
she reads and writes fantasy.
Even
in terms of the MIB franchise – I love it for the aliens, she loves it for Will
Smith...(;-))
I’m
NOT going to iterate the plot here. If you really want to know the entire movie
before you see it, go here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Men_in_Black_3 to
get the complete lowdown.
The
Daughter and I are here to review the movie and first of all I want to point
out that if you’re shy of emotional issues, then this MIB is not for you. Where
the others were a joyous romp all over the tropes of alien occupation, invasion
and secret societies; MIB3 for the first time deals with feelings. The
Daughter: And not just superficial feelings between Will Smith and an alien
princess (ahem…Men in Black 2), but real, substantial feelings that resonate
not just with blissful lovebirds but with the human experience at a deeper
level.
Therein
lies its strength.
Io9
recently posted on “trilogies”, the best and the worst – it’s worth a read!
Read it here: http://io9.com/5912471/best-and-worst-movie-threequels-of-all-time.
If I was writing the piece, I would now add the MIB franchise to the BEST,
especially if you drop the second, painfully hideous flick (sorry Rick).
Where
the first two movies were alien romps with gross beings and fantastic laser
guns, and while the third one has these, there is a far deeper story here. Even
more amazing, the character who is pushing for the deeper story is J, Will
Smith’s character. Smart, sassy and obnoxious for the first two movies, it’s as
if he grew up in the interval between MIB2 and MIB3. He is, in fact, older in
this movie than in the others! Both The Daughter and I noticed that Will Smith
has aged albeit gracefully The Daughter: Meanwhile Tommy Lee Jones is
wizened and equipped with his usual endearing stoicism, he just sort of looks
old. MIB1 was made in 1997 and MIB2 in 2002, so that means that Smith was a
“kid” of 29 and is now 43. Those years, especially with children added in, can
age a person, especially when he and his wife worked full time as actors as
well as having a family life and everything that entails in these early years
of the 21st Century.
That
explains the new depth of character that Smith gives Agent J, and it seems to
me that the main issue broached in the movie is one that Smith may have had to
face when he was 13, and one he has likely pondered as a dad.
Another
actor The Daughter and I discussed was Emma Thompson. Winner of 40 awards
including Emmys, Oscars and Golden Globes whose acting credits run from
Beatrice in Shakespeare’s MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING to the voice of the cat woman,
Captain Amelia in the cartoon TREASURE PLANET. She has played such eccentric
and varied characters as Nanny McPhee and Karen Eiffel. We could just see her
agent handing her the script for MIB3 and her trying to fend it off, and crying
in her distinctive British accent, “No, no, please! Not another American film!
Especially about alien invasions! I refuse to be known as That British Sci-Fi
Actor! Look what happened to Sigourney Weaver!”
We
imagined the agent begging her and finally, exasperated, she would grab the
script and begin to read. When she’s done, she would have sighed and clutched
the pages to her chest, leaned back and said, “Now THIS is intelligent.”
Because
above all things, MIB3 is smart, sassy and has fascinating characters –
finally.
Don’t
get me wrong, the gross aliens are still there: Humans in fanciful costumes,
Bowling Ball Head, a gigantic fish who tries to eat J (and who just has to be
related to the subway alien, Jeff), as well as the ubiquitous Worms (who are
always abandoning Earth at the moment of truth) and the unsurprising revelation
that Lady Gaga is an alien living on Earth. The Daughter: I KNEW IT!
Also, one must note the distinctively retro angle they took on the aliens at
the 1969 MIB headquarters. Garish colors; flaky pointed heads; and bulky
costumes make them look oh so corny. Yet the viewer takes pleasure in this knowing
that it was deliberately done and stands in contrast to the sharp sleekness of
the contemporary MIB headquarters.
But
two new aliens gave us pause by their depth. Griffin, a five dimensional being
who can appear any way he wants to in our three dimensions and who views time
however he wants to as either spectator or participant is both winning and
thought-provoking. Brilliantly played by actor Michael Stuhlbarg, we fell in
love with him and his earnest, vaguely creepy comments. The way he viewed time
as endlessly branching possibilities that eventually collapse into the
“present” we are familiar with, made me remember the importance of seemingly
small events and the possibility that they can be significant. He iterates this
well when he says something like, “No one is that important to the time
line.” Agent J replies that something Griffin assumes is there –
isn’t, Griffin amends, “Oh, he’s one of the ones who IS that important.”
But
Boris The Animal (“My name is BORIS IT’S JUST BORIS!”) is especially...alien.
In a movie full of Humans in costumes, this alien is truly creepy as only an
“almost-but-not-exactly-Human-with-unsettling-differences” can be. The
Daughter: the worst moment is when his weird “film canister” eyes fall out
during his final scene, in order to pull back into his disgusting carcass-esque
body. His biology is both bizarre and almost understandable and while
his attitude is unrelentingly foul (making him a bit one-dimensional) he is the
perfect villain for the MIB. There are even echoes of J’s issue in a scene
between Borises – but I’ll leave it to you to figure that out. The movie is
rich with allusions and metaphors and perhaps even a parable or two.
While
I wouldn’t go so far as to say that MIB3 is the greatest science fiction movie
of all time, I would be willing to say that it is one of the Ten Best SF Movies
of All Time – and for this critic of SF movies, that’s going WAY out on a
limb.
See
it. I’m pretty sure you won’t regret it. The Daughter: This is a gross,
exciting sci-fi movie that’s for women, too…and not in the same way that say,
TRANSFORMERS stuck in a romance in order to please the girlfriends that were
dragged along to that movie. It’s just not a silly hack-and-slash/blinking
lights film. It’s like…quality.
One
final note, even knowing the ending, I actually wept at the end of the movie
this time. While I missed it on the Big Screen, this time I saw the emotions
flashing over J's face as he realized EXACTLY what K had done...and why. I
think it was BRILLIANT and I now elevate MIB III to the Top Five Best SF
Movies of All Time.
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