Review - Men in Black 3

Grade: B-

Has anybody honestly missed Will Smith and his whole king of 4th of July schtick?

I’ll wait...

The decline of the straight-up, old-fashioned movie star has been well documented, and Big Willie Style is no exception. Ever since the Fresh Prince started chasing Oscars over Box Office receipts a few years ago, he has started to fade into that unfortunate space where his buddy Tom Cruise used to reside: the space where audiences see stars in the gossip rags more frequently than they do on the silver screen.

Granted, neither the gossip rags nor the box office numbers have been particularly kind to Mr. Smith over the past few years, which means it’s just about time for his team to get the kid from Philly on the comeback trail with a sequel to one of his biggest hits.

In response to the raucous clamoring for more misadventures of intergalactic Border Patrol Agents J and K, Will Smith has dusted off his movie star persona and forced Tommy Lee Jones to come along for a third, and generally unnecessary, Men in Black 3 (MIB3). Roughly ten years after their last outing, J (Smith) and K (Jones) have been going about  their duties blasting aliens into to space goo and neuralyzing innocent bystanders. Meanwhile, on Lunarmax, a supermax space prison for aliens reminiscent of the the floating supermax from this spring’s Lockout, the Macho Man Randy Savage, known here as Boris the Animal (Jermaine Clement doing his best Tim Curry impression)--a one arm Boglodarian with a grudge against the ever-grimacing K--escapes with the aid of a Pussycat Doll (Nicole Scherzinger). His plan is simple: go back in time, kill K, and allow his fellow Boglodarians to invade and conquer Earth. When Boris manages to jump back and erase K from the timeline, J jumps back in time to work with the younger K (Josh Brolin) to prevent the older K from evaporating into nothing and say “aw, hell naw” to a Boglodarian invasion. 

Boasting a simple plot, which is always best when dealing with time travel, MIB3 sports the hallmark breezy silliness of the previous installments, but director Barry Sonnenfeld wisely focuses the action on the relationship between J and K. Sonnenfeld and a writing team headed by Etan Cohen of Tropic Thunder fame use J’s journey back to the past to build K beyond the muttering cartoon he has been since the first Men in Black. J, on the other hand, remains the same boisterous smart mouth he has been from day one, and despite a mildly touching 12th hour retcon, he shows almost negative growth. Sadly, he gets the most screentime and the most “laughs”--including a few ribald racial jokes that recall the discomfort of Wild Wild West--which I’m sure Will Smith and his massive trailer had nothing to do with. Despite dominating the proceedings, Smith still manages to bring an exuberant charm--probably because he’s not running and crying--that occasionally offsets some of the more trite elements of his performance.  Smith even lets co-star Josh Brolin shine in a role that is amazingly more than a drawn-out impression, with Brolin giving some reasonable dimension to K that manages to make Jones’ version that much deeper. Michael Stuhlbarg, best known as Boardwalk Empire’s Arnold Rothstein, also deserves a note for his performance as Mork-ish precog Griffin, a goofy sidekick who bypasses grating and steps very close to being charming.

Combining with the generally inoffensive, albeit formulaic, plot and some decent character-building performances, MIB3 comes off much better in execution than it ever sounded on paper, especially in light of the hubbub around Smith’s efforts to try his hand at screenwriting on a major studio release. Now, MIB 3 is very likely going to get crushed at the box office this weekend, as have all other contenders to the Avengers throne, but at least it is not as bad as the other blockbuster options out there. [UPDATE: MiB3 actually did the trouncing this past weekend, but still didn't prevent Avengers from edging closer to the No. 3 on the biggest domestic box office list] Plus, if we want to spare  ourselves from another Seven Pounds then we need to keep the Fresh Prince focused on making blockbusters and away from leaden, weepy dramas that hurt everybody’s feelings.

The Yin and Yang of it

Yin: More of the same MIB action and jokes. Will Smith dominates the punchlines and the screentime with all the classic Fresh Prince-isms in tow..

Yang: Decent character building courtesy of Brolin and Jones. Smith offsets his trademarks with an almost giddy charm. Generally breezy, inoffensive plotting.

In-between: Will Smith teleports back to 1969. Racial humor in vein of Wild Wild West ensues. Frown.

Review - Captain America: The First Avenger

Grade: A-

Good: Good old-fashioned superheroics with an earnestness missing from most superhero movies; Anchored by solid, likable performances from Evans, Atwell and Jones; Cool Easter eggs for comic fans

Bad: Some weak CGI and needless special effects; rushed ending

Ugly: When the Red Skull loses his face.

When I was about ten, my favorite superhero movie was not Superman or Batman, but Disney’s adaptation of The Rocketeer. I didn’t recognize the nostalgia for what it was at the time, but I knew Nazis were bad and a guy with jetpack strapped to his back, which was as likely to kill him as propel him into the air, would never be anything but cool. Seeing the movie again earlier this year, I realized how great it really was. It was an earnest piece of nostalgia—almost twenty years later and I get it—that was unafraid to be simple, good old-fashioned superhero fun. Marvel’s Captain America: The First Avenger is the perfect heir to the Rocketeer’s legacy, delivering a plain old fun superhero tale that recalls the virtues of Golden Age comics with little of the angst and pretense of most superhero movies.

Captain America breaks the cycle of rote origin stories to become Marvel’s best movie since the first Iron Man thanks in large part to its likable cast and commitment to unabashed, uncomplicated superheroics. Chris Evans, the former Human Torch, stars as the titular Sentinel of Liberty, Steve Rogers, who begins the movie as a 98 lb. weakling desperate to join the allied effort to battle the Third Reich in 1942. Evans plays Rogers perfectly as a hero with a heart bigger than Spider-Man’s and easily more willpower than Green Lantern. Evans’ Rogers is tough and patriotic, but not overbearing as one might expect from a hero draped in the flag, and this is all before he becomes Cap. After four failed attempts to enlist, Rogers is handpicked by genteel, noble German refuge Dr. Abraham Erskine (Stanley Tucci, playing another sublime variation on the world’s coolest mentor), at the Stark Exposition no less, for an experimental procedure. With the help of austere British agent Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell) and the father of the future Iron Man, Howard Stark (Dominic Cooper), Erskine subjects Rogers to a super scientific procedure that basically equates to an injection of steroids in an industrial strength tanning booth. Rogers emerges as the picture of human perfection, with peak human agility, speed and strength. Ironically, he’s the embodiment of Hitler’s Aryan ideal sent to sock Hitler in the face.

On the other side of the Atlantic, the result of Erskine’s first experiment, Nazi malcontent with a severe skin condition Johann Schmidt aka The Red Skull (Hugo Weaving), is building an army known as Hydra that will break away from the Third Reich and bring the world to its knees. As the Red Skull plans to take over the world with the help of a cosmic device yanked from Odin’s treasure room—see, it’s all connected—Cap slogs through a stint as a USO mascot and war bonds salesman before single-handedly rescuing a unit that includes his best friend, one James Buchanan “Bucky” Barnes (Sebastian Stan), and setting himself on a crash course with the Skull and Hydra.

While Evans does a great job toning down his typical snarky charisma and imbuing Cap with a respectable, genuine sincerity, he is supported by a more than able cast that includes Tommy Lee Jones and a number of familiar, if not overly famous, faces. Hayley Atwell’s Agent Carter is a solid romantic foil for Cap. She is competent and tough, but shows feelings for Cap without being schmaltzy. Jones plays the Colonel of Cap’s unit with the rugged toughness that has defined Jones career. In Cap, he seems to be rehashing his Agent K persona from Men in Black while seeming to have as much fun in a comic-based film as he’s had in a long time. Sebastian Stan is great in a smart turn as Bucky Barnes. Comic fans will be familiar with Bucky as essentially Captain America’s Robin, a teenage sidekick thrust into a ridiculously dangerous situation. Here, Director Joe Johnston and a screenwriting team led by Christopher Markus make a smart move by aging Bucky to adulthood and establishing a more storied rapport between the two. Dominic Cooper brings a cocky spark to Howard Stark that mimics Robert Downey’s performance as Howard’s son Tony.

Hugo Weaving does a serviceable job as the Red Skull, a villain who is not as flamboyant as the Joker or the Green Goblin. Due to the focus Red Skull as the force behind on Hydra rather than a weapon of the Third Reich, Skull loses a bit of his edge. Weaving doesn’t help by dropping the German accent a few times and wavering between slightly over-the-top villainy and believable menace. On average, the performances in Cap are uniformly great in their balance between cockiness and grit that many, right or wrongly, believe defined the WWII era.

Director Joe Johnston was seen as a questionable when announced, but, as the man who helmed The Rocketeer, he’s actually perfect. With Captain America, he did a great job of recreating the visual feel of 1940s serials, complete with sepia filter and halo effect. It was an especially wise choice on his and Marvel’s part to avoid temptation to bring Cap into the modern age too soon. The war era setting makes the characters earnestness much easier to digest and seems to deflate any cynicism very quickly, mostly due to the rose-colored glasses through which many view WWII. Marvel Zombies will also be pleased with Easter eggs of some notable heroes and villains from the era and nods to classic Cap mythos, including a pretty faithful recreation of the original costume used in serials from the 40s—though, it must be said, the new costume is pretty cool and is probably the most practical superhero costume since Batman’s Dark Knight variation.

Captain America fails a bit with some visual effects that can be a bit hokey with the main offender being the CGI de-muscling of Chris Evans. One thing about Cap that Johnston may have missed is that he’s not superhuman. Cap is the peak of human physical ability, so there’s no need for him to toss guys around like superman. If Johnston and Marvel would have looked to the Bourne trilogy for inspiration, they could have made Cap a living weapon with a minimum of special effects. Captain America also suffers from a rushed ending that removes the possibility of some very necessary character development for Cap. In the Marvel Universe, Cap is known as a master strategist who has logged hundreds of missions. The movie glosses over the mission’s that would have built Cap’s legend in effort to jump forward. Hopefully, there will be a sequel that eschews a modern adventure for a look at the parts of Cap's legacy that Johnston skipped.

I don’t normally call for sequels, but I want to see more Captain America. Not many superhero movies have been this enjoyable, likeable and just plain fun. It may not have the edge that more jaded members of the audience are looking for, but it trades the snark and angst that defines Marvel for a genuineness that is sorely lacking in most superhero films. Many in know will only see this as another of Marvel’s 90-minute commercials for next year’s Avengers, but Cap, just like Steve Rogers, is so much more and that’s worth saluting.