Film Diary 2012: Men In Black 3

The second Men In Black film came out in 2002 and was, unfortunately, a rehash of the original that ramped up the more irritating elements of the first film and gave them precedence (Frank the Pug barking along to Who Let The Dogs Out, etc). It was the Ghostbusters II of the noughties. It wasn't entirely awful, and had some strong sci-fi concepts mixed in with a rather wobbly plot and a very lacklustre villain, but, come the final act it had two stand-out moments that kept the world of the Men In Black strong in my estimation. The first was a rather brilliantly orchestrated flashback scene in which K (Tommy Lee Jones) re-remembers his youthful encounter with the baddie, and the second was the inclusion of Rosario Dawson as Laura, a love interest for Agent J (Will Smith) who is taken away from him at the film's close. I, at the time, was smitten for a girl who had to go back to Uni that Summer and the parallels between Laura leaving on a spacepod and this girl leaving on a Megabus were palpable enough that I have the unfortunate honour of having cried at the end of Men In Black II.

Anyway...

It's been ten years since the last Men In Black film, so anticipation for this threequel has been mixed at best. However, the film is a strong reminder of why - compared to most other blockbusters - the Men In Black are refreshing and vital in amongst the herds of cookie-cutter tentpole releases. There are three key elements as to why this film is, despite its flaws, a success: 1. Ideas.

Each Men In Black film has, to varying degrees, had some wonderful ideas about our world, our perception of the world and general attitudes to life. The first film was summed for me during a conversation between J and K in which the latter says; "A person is smart, but people are dumb, panicky, stupid creatures." It goes deeper than that, suggesting that the world is always under threat from some sort of alien invasion and the only way we can go about our lives is through sheer ignorance, ignorance granted us by the Men In Black. Additionally, the film played with our expectations of 'scale', the universe that the lead villain seeks to destroy is contained on a cat's collar, and in a playful final shot our own universe is contained inside some beads.

Men In Black 3's ideas are even stronger than these, thanks primarily to the character of Michael Stuhlbarg as Griffin. Griffin is a character who can see all possible realities playing out simultaneously, and can note from the slight variations in the reality he currently inhabits which version of events are potentially about to play out. This character reaches a rather touching emotional peak when he allows J and the young K (Josh Brolin) to see things his way, watching a baseball game and, though the game in our timeline isn't due to happen for months, Griffin explains that somewhere it's always October and November and so on, and then continues to detail the tiny happenings that caused the game to go the way it did, and these tiny events we call miracles. It's a sweet way of explaining chaos to an audience, and Stuhlbarg handles this character very well, as it could have been a much more cloying creation than it ends up being.

2. Imagination.

Though the over-arching narrative of the film is a tad convoluted and hackneyed (going back to the past to save the future), it allows the filmmakers to have a great deal of fun in the creation of wild and wacky aliens (Rick Baker is a living legend) and eccentric set, prop and costume design. The film runs on its own sense of logic, so it can throw anything it likes at the audience, very quickly we get gigantic fish monsters, an insectoid alien that lives in one character's hand and Emma Thompson talking in a screechy extra-terrestrial dialect.

No matter how 'straight-forward' the plot may get there's always something inventive and peculiar happening on screen and it's so refreshing to see a Hollywood film being creative and quirky. When cinema screens are often filled with very samey scenes of city wide action 'spectacle' it's all the more impactful to see a guy wearing prosthetics or a set piece that takes place somewhere outside of town!

3. Heart.

All three Men In Black films have had relationships and character at their centre, no matter how outrageous the surrounding events have been the film's primary focus has been the people that inhabit this world. This third film, rather bravely, pushes that further than before, the overall theme of the picture being 'regret' and - much like Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade - it touches upon father issues, a bit of a Hollywood pop-psychology cliche but nonetheless an effective one.

Thanks to a plot that sees K wiped from existence and J, who somehow still remembers him, having to go back, meeting K's younger self and stopping the erasing before it even happens, there's a great chance for the two men to bond in a way quite unlike they have before. Thanks to Josh Brolin's effortless and seamless performance, you instantly believe he is the younger Agent K.

Ultimately, beyond the creatures and concepts, what the film leaves you with is a little bit of character development, the sense of something shared, something changed, and something, more importantly, that can resonate with an audience.

More broadly speaking, these three points are the very things that meant I did not enjoy Avengers Assemble. That was a film that had no real time for characters to grow and change or for any emotional resonance to sit with the audience at the film's close, had anyone in that movie 'learnt' anything? No, they'd just beaten the baddies, as they usually do. Was there much in the way of imagination displayed in that film? Nope, some city battles with anonymous aliens and Transformer-like flying things. Were there any interesting or smart concepts, ideas or even narrative choices taken in the telling of that story? Nuh-uh, it was the most bog standard of here's a baddie/stop the baddie plots imaginable, with barely a twist or turn along the way. These same complaints can be applied to plenty of other Hollywood blockbusters, but, when a film attempts even one or two of these three elements it's a massive redeeming feature for me and can forgive a number of other sins. Indeed, a lot of my favourite films are those that try and, perhaps, fail, but, at the very least, they had some ambition. Men In Black 3 is not a great film, it's got a fair few issues, but it's fun, it's got some ideas, some imagination, and most of all, some heart.

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