Old and busted. The new hotness.
I had a theory that if I went back in time about ten years
and spoke to myself, what would I ask myself about the future of popular
culture? “What kind of movies are people watching, what kind of games are they
playing?” And I’d tell him “It’s all different. People are watching a brand new
Spider-man film, and people are
playing Diablo and Max Payne on their computers.” “Oh” my
younger self will reply. Such is the nature of remakes and sequels, nothing
really new is achieved, nothing truly original.
Without getting into a discussion of inter-textuality and
how all texts are somehow related to one another on some level, I’ll just go
ahead and talk about this week’s sequel Men
In Black 3. In this Will Smith’s J goes back in time to save K’s (Tommy Lee
Jone’s) younger version (Josh Brolin) from some kind of Scout/Hitman/Biker
Boris the Animal (Germaine Clement).There's also Emma Thompson playing O, with the very lovely Alice Eve playing the younger version.
My first reactions to hearing about their making of this
movie were pretty grim. Every film franchise, it turns out, needs a 60s Mad Men
style version. At least with X-Men First Class they actually had a Mad Men cast
member. It’s a sign of the times, of the tastes; after all, there was a period
where every film franchise needed a Hong Kong action version, like Lethal Weapon 4 (1998) with Jet Li and Tomorrow Never Dies (2000) with Michelle
Yeoh. I’d count the disastrous The Mummy:
Tomb of the Dragon Emperor (2008), though that came out after the craze had
passed, though it does feature Jet Li, but I digress.
So we get a Mad Men in Black, complete with sharp suits and
slick hair. While the greatest triumph of the film is its design (more on that
later). But the one thing I was most concerned about in my viewing of this film
is the performances. I love Josh Brolin, and he was as incredible as I thought
he’d be, his impersonation of Jones was perfect. Will Smith was inconsistent,
and it was interesting to watch him on screen after his sabbatical. He still
has fans, and while his charm is significantly lesser than in the first film of
the franchise, in my theater at least he still had fans and could still raise a
laugh. It’s all in the eyes, you see. You can see that, with the exception,
Brolin perhaps, not everyone in this film really wants to be here. There was those old scenes from the other MIB movies, where they use the neuralizer on the public and Will makes up a funny story to cover it. They do these here, but they really lack the fun of the older movies.
But while Smith at least tries, Jones is really flat. It’s
one of those situations where I’d like to know what the mood on the set actually
is, where that story would interest me more than the
actual film itself. I remember once, and I can’t remember if it was for the
first MIB or the second, but the puppeteer
that performed those alien Worm characters was saying on Entertainment Tonight
that he managed to make Jones laugh, and that this was some kind of
achievement. I don’t know if this was some kind of comment regarding the
tough-guy mystique that Jones had created for himself, or that he was miserable
to be around on set. I’m starting to think the latter.
But it’s an alarming trend I’ve been seeing where the big
stars just don’t try all that hard anymore. I know for a fact that Bruce Willis
certainly doesn’t give it his all anymore, as evidenced by all his films of the
past five or six years. Add to that the people that worked with him on Kevin
Smith’s Cop Out, who all say he was
awful to work with. I think I first noticed this kind of thing in when I watched
that Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, with
Brendan Fraiser. He didn’t want to be there, and it showed, and if he didn’t
care then I didn’t care and the whole experience is just depressing and a waste
of time. Its selfish on their part, actually.
But that’s not to say that this film is careless. The design
is incredible. I love how the aliens in the past are all 1950s/60s sci fi movie
style, like old fashioned Star Trek monsters, as opposed to the new monsters of
today. And I love the 1960s MIB tech, the guns are all old fashioned, the neuralizer
is either hand pumped or an actual large machine one has to lie in, and of course
I love the single seater blade motorbikes, that looked great.
Something that made me think was a little odd was the
treatment of race in this film, something that’s been addressed before with
other reviewers. One review made mention of the fact that Wil Smith isn’t picked
up on for being black in the 60s; that’s erroneous, many moments draw attention
to it. And while it’s still very safely handled, at least they don’t ignore the
fact that for most of the 20th century white men ruled. I’m not
saying that’s a good thing, but it’s not like Captain America: The First Avenger where everyone accepts the Asian
guy, the black guy, and they accept taking orders from a woman, and the only
person they abuse is the scrawny white dude. No, that was a period of time when
if you weren’t a white man, you were an oppressed minority, and that’s just how
it was back then.There was also an incident when Brolin's K gets asked by his boss X whether a particular incident involved human casualties, suggesting he could care less about the aliens. This was a nice touch but never addressed again.
One thing I did take issue with was the Chinese restaurant
scene, where J and K shoot up the place after looking through the kitchen to
find gross live animals being cut up and served to guests. I suppose that’s the
downside of using non-white characters in this way; too many people will see it
as racist. I think the reason for the scene was expose those urban myths about
the awful food practices of Chinese restaurants while making it gross and alien
like the series normally does. But you can’t help but find it a little racist
when a southern man grabs and Chinese chef and caves his skull in with an iron
skillet, and only once the guy’s dead do we realize he had antennae and was an
alien.
Overall it was a fun movie, and I had a much better time
than I thought I would. For an incredibly paint-by-numbers film there were
still very inventive set pieces and moments. The thing that stops this from
being a great movie instead of just being an ok movie is that all important enthusiasm.
We all know that you’re just doing this for the money, but still, make us think
that you care and we’ll care with you. But as a popcorn movie, its worth having
a look.
PS, i really just want a Brolin MIB movie, which i hope they do.
***stars
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