Reviewing Men in Black 3 Without Having Seen It

I never saw the point of the Men in Black movies, other than making possible millions of parody gay porn titles like Black in Men that I’m sure exist. (SURE BECAUSE I OWN THEM.) Not that I’m some connoisseur of the highbrow – I’ve watched both the Male Gigolo and European Gigolo varieties of Deuce Bigalow more times than I care to count. It’s that I found Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones attempting to play off one another artificial and forced. And not just because Will Smith is a limited actor or that an old Southern guy like Tommy Lee Jones would be too busy checking for his wallet every five seconds while hanging around a man of colour to befriend him. (The fancy British spelling makes it non-racist.)

Well, the gods of product placement and endorsement deals have seen fit to grace us with another 90 minute commercial under the Men in Black label. The twist this time? That Tommy Lee Jones isn’t in half of the movie because Will Smith travels back to 1969 to partner up with a younger TLJ, played by Josh Brolin. Tommy Lee Jones must have hated this idea for a variety of reasons, not the least of which being that someone else playing your character is akin to your wife fucking another man who’s wearing a mask of your face and acting like it isn’t cheating. Also, Josh Brolin is 24 years younger than Tommy Lee Jones. It’s currently 2012. 1969 was 43 years ago, yet they got a guy only 24 years younger to play Jones, so he looks old as Hell even back then. If I was going to get cuckolded out of my role, I’d at least want some chiseled son of a bitch doing it. Get me Thor or Captain America or Tyrese, goddammit.

To those of you going to see Men in Black 3 this weekend, you’ll get what you deserve: A dopey film that you’ll forget 30 seconds after walking out of the theater and an audience full of mouth-breathers glued to their smartphones the entire time that will make it impossible to watch anything to begin with. Save yourself $12 bucks by sitting through a Fresh Prince rerun and pretending Uncle Phil is an alien in a fat suit. Or hop on a trampoline with a live rifle in your mouth. I’m happy either way.

Tagged as: Movie Review.