Men in Black 3 [DVD]

Is the third of a series a sequel or a threequel? And does a threequel have to be bad, especially if the sequel disappointed?In this time line and reality (you have to see MIB III to get the joke I just made), MIB III is definitely a hit and does not disappoint. It exceeded all my expectations and that's my favorite reality of all. (again, you have to see MIB III to get my joke). We need some history to understand why.My History with MIB:I was captivated by the original Men In Black. The chemistry between Tommy Lee Jone as K and Will Smith as J was remarkable, and the story line was tremendous fun. Here was a sci-fi adventure with lots of fancy looking gadgets, insanely complex aliens, a nasty yet hysterical villain, a ton of comedy and a happy ending -- proving that a sci-fi movie doesn't have to be all doom and gloom, horror, gore, and filled with pessimistic technobabble about the hopelessness of the future, or endless wars with evil slimy aliens intent on destroying humanity, with the humans only winning at a tremendous cost. Here, humanity was the good guys and we won. It was brilliant.I wasn't so excited by the sequel, MIB II. The chemistry between Jones and Smith was still there, the aliens were there, as were the fancy gadgets and sets, but it just didn't quite come off for me. It seemed, well, tired. The ending wasn't so happy, and though there were jokes a plenty, it had a much darker mood than the original. It was the lightness of the original that made it for me. The sequel seemed too forced and was just not that great.Happily, along comes the threequel, MIB III, and it has it all again. In some ways, it's the best of the lot.Why I enjoyed it so much:Will Smith is again brilliant as J. He had kept in-character throughout the series and delivers his lines spot on. The jokes are fast and furious, and his expressions and body language are wonderful to watch. He makes the character fun.Tommy Lee Jones reprises his role as K, and like Smith is very consistent. He's also a delight, and as sour as K ever was, but in this film, we find out why. He's not on screen that much, but when he is, he's great. Now he has some serious competition!A few "newcomers" appear who are definitely worth mentioning.Emma Thompson as O, the new leader after Z has passed on (we don't know why he died) is excellent as a leader of the MIB. She's always just plain fun to watch. Her character is quick, and just a bit silly.Josh Brolin appears as the younger K (yes, this film is all about time travel and paradoxes, it can make your head spin) and carries the role off by making it his own. To be honest, I didn't know the full cast when I started watching and was partly convinced that Brolin was actually Pierce Brosnan (they look a little alike and some of Brolin's mannerisms reminded me of him). Brolin's K is a much more approachable agent of the MIB, just as funny and wise as Jone's K, but in a more human way. He's also just plain fun to watch. It looks like he's enjoying the part he plays.Michael Stuhlbarg almost steals the show as Griffin, the friendly alien who can see all possible futures and works with K and J to stop the villain and save the day (and the Earth from invasion). He is so animated, his eyes are so bright and his facial expressions are so open... he's an easy candidate for my favorite alien. Great actor.While it's easy to like the "good guys", they won't stand out much as characters unless they are up against a read baddie. And this MIB has a villain even more amazing than the original MIB I (remember the cockroach guy, hysterical but also menacing)?Hats off to Jemaine Clement as Boris, The Animal (actually a sort of hybrid of several alien animals in one body). He's really scary and dangerous, bent on destruction - not a complex villain with angst, he just wants to change history so his race can invade and eat the Earth - and he's pretty much unstoppable.So here we have a great cast (there are others to mention, I didn't see any performance I didn't like). Do we have a great story?The Story:I can't put in any spoilers here, it would not be fair. Suffice it to say that while the story uses a number of tried and true sci-fi cliche's, it does it with a freshness that is brilliant. They put in just the right twists on the tried and true, spin it in a different direction that it kept me on my toes while watching the film, guessing, but never correctly, what was going on or what would happen next. The script and writing on this movie is top notch.There are jokes a plenty as one would expect, and they come fast and furious. I had to rewind and watch several segments repeatedly to savor them all.A few things about the story really stand out. They manage to get suspense not only because of the plot twists, but also from some extremely uncomfortable (for me anyway) visual effects.If you get an adrenalin rush from very high places without a net, you'll love some of the scenes in this movie. How they filmed it has me wondering! This makes not only are some of the alien bits "edge of your seat" stuff, but also some of the action sequences -- just what you'd want in an action adventure. And they don't look faked, at least, not to me! Using height to excite the audience is nothing new, but this movie does it with more of a roller coaster effect.The script is also very strong on heart.As one character says to J (I paraphrase here) "You must really love the guy to go through this for him". And that's what we get a lot of in this movie - heart. J is devoted to K as his partner. He's got his back and will do anything for him. More than that, the younger K is open to J's devotion and accepts it without curmudgeon (as we expect from the older K). But he also is a hero and must do what he must do, in spite of the risks. He can't let J's devotion stop him from fulfilling his destiny. The relationship is very touching.Griffin, the alien, brings a sense of wisdom to all the adventure. He delivers some very wonderful lines, memorable and touching.There is nothing particularly shocking in the film, just great suspense and action, plenty of surprises and the greatest surprise comes at the end of the movie.The writers set us up for one "reality", but what plays out is something completely different, totally unexpected, and so amazingly well done that it ties up the entire K-J relationship together in a single, poignant scene. Everything makes sense, but it comes at a surprising cost for the characters, and our emotions.Sets and Scenery:MIB III delivers here as well, with some oddities.The set for the MIB HQ in our present day has been upgraded. Unfortunately, the HQ now looks like it was designed by APPLE engineers. Everything is white, silver and glass with very little color anywhere. Yes, this contrasts with the "black" of Men In Black, but I would have enjoyed the HQ being less "Applish". Apple is a great company, but why does it have to be imitated in so many sci-fi movies (i.e. Star Trek, the alternate Enterprise bridge)?Nevertheless there are a few sight gags in the sets. For example, look closely at O's office. I don't want to give the joke away, but most of the time, we see it in parts, an edge here, an interior shot there, bits and pieces of it. However, when J leaves it to start on his rescue of K, the camera backs off enough that we see the entire office and its shape. That shape will look very familiar. Hint: This is a movie about aliens in more ways than one!The MIB HQ in the past (1969) is a great homage to architect Frank Lloyd Wright. To get that, you have to look at images of the interior layout of the Johnson Wax building that Wright designed.That's an interesting view, but there is a huge joke in the HQ as well. To get it, you have to have seen MIB I and remember where the cockroach's escape spaceship comes from. In a very quick pan of the MIB HQ of 1969, you'll see it again as the camera makes a pan across the room.Conclusion:MIB III is an unexpected delight. It has everything I want in a lighthearted and entertaining sci-fi movie. The acting is brilliant, the writing and sets... well, let's just say I thought the whole thing was brilliant. Entertaining, engrossing, kept me guessing, and it has just the right touch of heart to make it a "I'm really glad I saw it." movie.And a note about Amazon.I watched this on Amazon Instant Video as a 24 hour rental based on a Christmas gift certificate I received.Once again, Amazon comes through with an easy purchase. I simply found the movie, applied my gift certificate code, and was even able to download MIB III temporarily to my PC (so it would play more smoothly.)I was even able to watch some of it as it was downloading (on my computer this caused a bit of jerkiness, which is to be expected, my computer is an older model). Picture quality was excellent and it played very well once fully downloaded.So hats off toe Amazon for their process in being able to "rent a movie".And hats off to MIB III for being a great $3.99 rental.Money well spent. I loved it!

Good movie

I absolutely had to grab this one on Blu-ray to tie together the absolute greatest movie trilogy I've seen out of everything I've seen, you can't beat physical media, especially with streaming regularly removing content or making it unavailable where you're at

Few movies work as hard to ruin franchise goodwill as MIB III does in its first thirty minutes. Your boredom quickly turns to hostility once you realize that no matter how unimpressed you are with the tepid dialogue, forced jokes, and glacial pacing, Tommy Lee Jones is even more unimpressed than you. By a wide margin. It's as if the man could scarcely stay awake to deliver his lines. Will Smith, on the other hand, vamps for audience with as much enthusiasm as he can muster, although he seems to realize that he's becoming an old dog with tricks of a similar vintage. When he and Jones share a scene together in a car early on, you feel as if you are watching two old boxers, both on the take, just waiting for a few more rounds to pass so they can call it a day.And then...The movie jumps back to 1969, trades Jones for the living miracle that is Josh Brolin, and for the next hour and a half becomes the best summer action movie you have ever seen. The pretense for having Agent J (Smith) go back in time is to prevent an alien named Boris the Animal from killing Agent K (Jones) later in 1969--something J realizes Boris has accomplished one night when K and all evidence of his existence after 1969 go missing. Why J can remember K post-1969 when no one else can is never satisfactorily explained, but you will stop caring once J meets 29-year old K, played by 42-year old Josh Brolin. That Brolin could not and does not pass for a 29-year old is almost immediately irrelevant, because Josh Brolin plays Tommy Lee Jones better than Tommy Lee Jones ever has. After you have seen Brolin's spot-on impersonation and realized that it not only matches but in many ways exceeds the original model, you will wish that other Tommy Lee Jones movies would be re-filmed with Brolin standing in. He's just that good, and his performance elevates Smith, who finds in Brolin all the chemistry he used to have with Jones.The plot adds a few degrees of complexity to the "save K" framework. First, J isn't allowed to tell K that Boris kills him because of the time-space continuum or some such nonsense. Second, K's untimely death in 1969 kept the "Arc Net" from being deployed. What is the Arc Net? A plot device mostly, but also a giant shield that serves to protect the earth from an invasion by the evil race of aliens to which Boris the Animal belongs. So, if K dies in 1969, then earth ends in 2012.Smith and Brolin go traipsing through 1969, and obligatory (and obvious) references to the free-love era abound. As with most jokes predictable, these fall flat, and they take up too much time (an extended scene with an MIB agent posing as Andy Warhol is about as clever as it sounds). So what works? Brolin. No matter what he is doing, it is hilarious. And Smith, as long as he is in 1969 (the race-based interactions are particularly funny). And, oddly enough, technology jokes (it's 1969, so all the gadgets are...bigger). And the action sequences, especially the clever climactic battle at the Cape Canaveral launch pad which is smarter than it is loud--a rare thing in the big-budget crowd.But the script and director Barry Sonnenfeld truly shine with the tender elements, and not just the whopper at the end (which you will not see coming). The smallest things--interactions between the younger K and a female agent he is sweet on, a moving vision of a baseball game that has yet to take place--are presented with none of the rush or camp that you normally find in summer tent poles. The resulting undercurrent is somber enough to leave room for one of the most heartbreaking finales you will ever see in any movie, regardless of genre. Agent K's steely demeanor has always belied a tragic past, a frustration at having to do the wrong thing for the right reason for far too long. The big reveal does not disappoint, and you can feel every inch of Agent K's despair as he is presented with an awful choice, and then something worse. The scene is piercing, and it will linger in your memory more than any other in the series.It is impossible to overstate the difference between the first quarter of this film and the rest. Had there been some tighter editing at the outset, this would be a five star movie. As it stands, the two dissimilar parts add up to a solid, four star whole. Enjoy.

Now I have 1, 2, and 3. Life is complete.

La última de Men in black

This MIB is quite different from the previous. It is very difficult for any SciFi to include time travel. Time travel just gives me a headache. It's not possible, plain and simple, even if it makes for a great movie. And this is a great movie, albeit quite different from previous MIB. There are virtually no women in this movie. This is all about men destroying the world which they do so well. I enjoyed the movie, but it was very different from previous MIB, and I guess there will be yet more sequels.

ottimo film e molto divertente non solo ma ottimo anche il 3DNON TUTTI SANNO KE... i lettori blu-ray 3D non sono tutti uguali (purtroppo..) e quando comprate un lettore blu ray 3D dovreste provarlo e andare nelle opzioni x vedere quanto ha di profondità un ottimo blu ray 3D dovrebbe averne fino al 3 livello x darvi il massimo del 3D ad esempio un lettore Sony ne ha al massimo 2..quindi non rende al massimo.. gli altri non so e la ps3 è solo manuale quindi potreste dare troppo o poco profondità il giusto x 3 livello è regolare 8su e 10giu però in caso di sottotitoli può dare noia agli occhi.. il mio consiglio è affidarsi completamente al lettore blu-ray 3D LG perché è estremo a 3 livvello di profondità e è in automatico e regola il 3D da solo.. ke vuol dire? ke in caso di sotto titoli regola il sottotitolo sottostante con la messa a fuoco del 3D rendendolo leggibile e in profondità levando il fastidio agli occhi e sfocatura.. e il 3D lo hai originale sia in immagini che alla profondità portandolo al 3 livello estremo con uscite dallo schermo fino al volto e sensazione di guardare dal vivo...sempre se nel film c è.. dato che molti film son deludenti in fatto di 3D..che dirvi del film? compratelo e buon divertimento in tutto e per tutto compreso il 3D AHH..ULTIMA COSA..le tv3D specie gli ultimi modelli son presso che tutti uguali e con al massimo di livello del 3D son i lettori blu-ray 3D che danno la visuale del 3D del film quindi non ammattite a regolare la tv ma piuttosto comprate un altro lettore... io vi dico.. LG e siete sicuri al 200% ciao a tutti

Me faltaba está para tenerlas todas

Add in time travel, and you got Back to the Future meets MIB. Liked it a lot more than I expected. Nice close to the trilogy. Great work by Josh Brolin, as a younger Tommy Lee Jones. Rough in places (Oh, sure - like you care - you watched an alien steal and adorn a human skin in MIB-I!)