For reasons probably best explained with legal files and financial spreadsheets, Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones are back in black, doing what they always did: battling illegal aliens, saving the planet in an enormous special-effects splurge, then erasing everyone's memory, us included. Does anyone really recall Men in Black II, after all? Perhaps this is actually part 12 – how would we know? Still, the flatlining franchise is revived with some pretty strong jolts here. First, the agents-vs-aliens shtick is transposed to a different era; secondly, for much of the running time, it replaces tired-looking Lee Jones with Josh Brolin, playing his younger self. Brolin does a better rendition of Jones' drawled, Texan deadpan than Jones himself, and he brings the movie to life after a sluggish set-up.
Jones' Agent K, you see, is tracked down by a growly, one-armed alien fugitive named Boris the Animal, played with cartoonish gusto by Flight of the Conchords' Jemaine Clement. Boris has a score to settle with Agent K from 40 years ago, and he settles it in a way that erases K from history to all but Smith's Agent J, and, of course, threatens the fate of the planet. Like a reverse Terminator, therefore, J must travel back to 1969 and alter fate, with the help of the young K – Brolin.
You'd think a black man from the future visiting the golden age of conspiracy theories, flower power and civil rights strife would offer a wealth of comic opportunities, but the movie is too set on racing through its mission to really have fun with its retro setting. The period recreation is lavish but feels synthetic – populated with stock 1960s caricatures who barely interact with the main characters. One welcome exception is an alien innocent, played by Michael Stuhlbarg, who can see alternate versions of reality simultaneously. His perceptions on fate and miracles are a joy, and help rescue the plot every time it ties itself in knots trying to be too clever.
It's by no means a triumph, but one of the enjoyable things about Men in Black has always been the malleable nature of its reality. At any stage, someone could rip off their face and reveal themselves to be giant caterpillar, a living room wall could flip up to expose a top-secret weapons arsenal, or Emma Thompson could burst into alien screeches, as she does here (though that's just about all she does). It's like a cross between Looney Tunes and The Naked Lunch – a hallucinogenic popcorn movie you can safely forget the moment it's over. So bring on Men in Black 13!
