Will Smith's back!

Men in Black is a strange movie franchise. It’s not the biggest science fiction movie series ever devised and yet it seems to have an almost cult following these days. Before this year there had been two movies, the second came out five years after the first and it appeared to be the last.

Hollywood had other ideas though, and this summer, ten years after the release of Men in Black 2, Men in Black 3 was released into the universe.

It could have probably picked a better time to come out to be honest. Summer of 2012 saw the superheroes dominate the movie theatres, The Avengers, The Amazing Spiderman and of course the big one: The Dark Knight Rises; Men in Black 3 seemed to get a little lost and probably paid for it at the box office.

So was it a decent movie or a quick cash in reviving a decade old franchise? Well actually I thought it was pretty good, which surprised me if I’m honest. I went to see this mainly because I knew Jermaine Clement of the Flight of the Conchords was in it. Yeah, that’s enough for me these days. It’s not a particularly bad film, it’s nothing special but it’s not bad either.

Men in Black 3 sees Will Smith take the leading role for the first time in ages while Tommy Lee Jones takes a bit of a back seat with his character being played by the much younger Josh Brolin. Yes in this instalment agent J (Smith) goes back in time to save his partner from his imminent demise and defeat moon convict Boris the Animal (Clement).

Essentially the baddie, Boris, escapes the pretty low security prison on the moon (where the MIB imprison their most fiendish of foes) and seeks revenge upon his captor, agent K. He decides to do this by going back in time and killing K before he manages to catch him. How is J going to stop him? By going back in time and stopping Boris before he kills K before he kills the past Boris… Simple.

Okay, so it isn’t anything special but there are a few decent laughs to be had which is a good thing and there are a few creative characters in it to keep you interested. However, people really shouldn’t expect anything spectacular from this movie, it’s watchable but it isn’t winning any awards. It tries a little too hard to be a comedy and falls flat more than it succeeds. There’s a running gag that Boris the Animal wants to just be called Boris, he says this a few times but it typically isn’t very funny.

Another strange thing I found was that the theme song to the movie, which is usually done by Will Smith himself, was instead done by Pitbull, one of the most mediocre artists in the music industry. I know Will Smith hasn’t rapped in a while, but I’m willing to bet that a rusty Will Smith could have done better than Pitbull’s woeful effort. Okay, so maybe Smith didn’t want to do it, but come on guys did you even ask Tommy Lee Jones to do it? Pitbull is way down at the bottom of the list, there must have been someone willing to pick up the mic for this…

The awful song aside though, Men in Black 3 is decent, and you don’t get to actually hear the song until the credits start rolling which will make you get to the car park quicker I suppose…

Final Verdict: 3 Stars. Cash in or not, it's better that you’d think.