Title: Men in Black 3
Year Released/Rating: 2012 PG-13
Starring: Will Smith, Tommy Lee Jones, Josh Brolin
Directed By: Barry Sonnenfeld
Written By: Ethan Cohen, Lowell Cunningham
Genre: Action, Comedy, Scifi
Star Rating: 3/5 stars
Where I Got It: Library Loan
Trivia:
- This is Will Smith's first film in 3.5 years, since the release of Seven Pounds in December 2008. This is the longest he has gone without appearing in a movie since his film career started in 1993.
- The number CRM-114 makes two appearances in this movie in the form of text that appears on the outside wall of the Lunar Max prison (seen after Boris breaks out) and the ID for the bunker on the beach at Cape Canaveral. These numbers are a nod to director Stanley Kubrick, who used this number in his movie Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.
- The zip line escape system shown at the Apollo launch pad really did exist. It was installed for the Apollo program and enhanced for the Space Shuttle program. In some pre-launch emergency scenarios, the crew would have ridden steel cages down the zip lines to explosion-proof bunkers. Astronauts practiced using the system as part of their training, but it was never used in an actual emergency.
- The white weird looking 'alien' fish which can be seen in the Chinese restaurant's kitchen scene is in fact an actual fish, Psychrolutes marcidus (or blobfish)
- Frank the Pug does not appear in this film, but his picture is seen in two places: J's apartment, and a carnival poster at Coney Island (seen when J is pulled over).
Summary: Agent J travels in time to M.I.B.'s early days in 1969 to stop an alien from assassinating his friend Agent K and changing history.
Review:
Not really an amazing movie, but fairly entertaining. I always like the combination of Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones. Unfortunately, we don't get much of them together in this movie. Josh Brolin does a decent job of imitating Jones' K, but I just didn't completely buy it. Plus, Boris the Animal is too much of a cartoony villain. Not sinister in the least. Okay for a free rental, but not worth actually paying for.
Best Bits:
- [from trailer] Agent J: All right, pay attention... [neuralyzes a crowd] Okay. You know how you kids won the goldfish in that little baggy at the school fair, and you didn't want that nasty thing in your house so you flushed it down the toilet? Well, this's what happened... [points to an alien fish towed away]
- Andy Warhol: Dammit K, trying to blow my cover? Agent J: Whoa, Andy Warhol's one of US? Andy Warhol: Who's the dumbass? Agent J: You know, I'd have no problem pimp-slapping the shiznit out of Andy Warhol.
- Griffin: The bitterest truth is better than the sweetest lie.
- [the crew of Apollo 11 are watching the fight between on the launch tower between the agents and bad guys] Buzz Aldrin: If we report this, they're going to scrub the launch. Neil Armstrong: [Passively] I didn't see anything.
- Agent J: You know, we been doing some pretty smart stuff over the past day or so, how about we do something stupid? Let's go get some pie!
- Agent K: Do you know the most destructive force in the universe? Agent J: Sugar? Agent K: Regret.