MEN IN BLACK 3 -- 8

So, I wasn't all that excited to see this movie.  MIB2 was pretty "eh", what with Frank the Pug as an agent and Will Smith doing a series of pratfalls and double takes.  But, MIB3 wasn't a direct relative of MIB2.  Instead, just pretend that it was never made and that MIB3 is the ten-year anniversary of the original MEN IN BLACK.

That man makes Brylcream look GOOD

There are several delightful things about this movie but the BEST thing about it is Josh Brolin.  His job was to be Agent K in 1969, which means his job really was to imitate Tommy Lee Jones.  Brolin did such an amazing job I thought at first Tommy Lee Jones was overdubing the dialogue.  Brolin was fantastic, and it was a delight to watch him.  He even had the same funny facial-expression-while-running that Jones does, and I didn't know until watching Brolin that Jones MADE a funny face!  It made me happy to see Brolin's performance because it means that someday, when Tommy Lee Jones has left this mortal coil, there is someone who can still bring us Agent K.

The other great thing about this movie is the style.  Everything is styled to the max and it is beautiful.  From Agent J's office

to Andy Warhol's party,

Agent K's apartment

or just the motorcycle of the evil alien

the art direction and styling were superb and, if I'm being honest, most of the story.  It was mesmerizing to watch Smith interact with modern sensibility in an era which had very different values.  In one scene Agent K has just managed not to die after jumping off a building

You know, like you do...

and he asks a man in an elevator the date and time.  The fact that he's dressed like Malcom X and the white dude is obviously terrified of him is funny and interesting and sad simultaneously.

"The hot blonde comes standard on MY jet pack."  

Anyway, it is an excellent movie and I enjoyed it thoroughly.  I would also like to point out that in ALL of the MIB movies, it is Agent K - Tommy Lee Jones - who has the love interest rather than Will Smith's character.  I can't figure out if it's because we like seeing a bottled-up cowboy open up and talk about emotions or if it's a lingering symptom of our nation's racial prejudice.  In a movie universe where aliens have equal rights, the black man runs around saving white dudes and still can't get the girl.