Men in Black 3 (2012)
★★½ — Men in Black 3 (2012)
Josh Brolin doing Tommy Lee Jones is, genuinely, one of the best bits of casting in any blockbuster of the 2010s. He doesn't just impersonate the man, he inhabits him. The shuffling gait, the clipped delivery, the sense that this bloke has seen too much and long since stopped being surprised by any of it. Every time Brolin was on screen in Men in Black 3, I forgot I was watching a third instalment in a franchise that had already outstayed its welcome once. That is no small thing. It's just a shame the film around him isn't quite worthy of the trick.
The premise is genuinely clever. Agent J, played by Will Smith with the kind of effortless cool that makes you wish he'd stayed in this gear forever, gets bounced back to 1969 to stop a lunar assassin rewriting history and wiping Agent K from existence. The 1960s setting gives the film a visual energy it badly needed. Mod suits, psychedelic alien designs, the Apollo programme as a backdrop, it all pops. Barry Sonnenfeld at least knows how to dress a shot, and the period detail is fun without being suffocating.
And there's a surprising amount of heart buried in the back half. The theme of legacy, of understanding someone you've worked alongside for years without ever really knowing them, gives the film a genuine emotional undercurrent. The finale, in particular, lands with a warmth I wasn't expecting. It earns it, mostly. That's not nothing.
But here's the thing. For all those moments where Men in Black 3 almost convinces you it's got something to say, it keeps stumbling over its own feet. The villain is underdeveloped to the point of being borderline anonymous. The stakes feel oddly low for a story about erasing a man from history and potentially dooming the planet. The middle section drags its heels badly, and too many of the gags land with a dull thud rather than a crack. The sharpness that made Men in Black such a joy is almost entirely absent here, and even the scrappy, sugar-rushed energy of Men in Black II is beyond this film's reach.
Sonnenfeld directed the first two, and he's back here, but he looks like a man going through a well-rehearsed routine rather than someone with any real appetite for the material. Everything is polished, everything is competent, and almost nothing crackles. There's a version of this film, with this premise and this cast, that could have been genuinely great. The bones are there. The execution just isn't.
It's not bad. I want to be fair about that. It's watchable, it has its moments, and Brolin's performance alone is worth the price of a lazy Sunday afternoon with it on. But forgettable is the word that keeps coming back to me. A few days after watching it, I had to actively remind myself what the villain's deal was. That's not a great sign for a film that's supposed to be wrapping up a trilogy.
Men in Black 3 still wears the suit, still knows the moves. It just doesn't have the spark anymore. A serviceable send-off for fans who want closure, but one that plays it safe at every turn when it really should have swung for something bigger.
Two and a half stars.
Rating: ★★½ | Year: 2012 | Watched: 2025-10-14
Where to watch
Watch in the UK
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