Men In Black 3 - Blu-ray Review

Heart. Bet you didn't expect that from a Men In Black film did you?

Heart. Bet you didn't expect that from a Men In Black film did you, much less the third offering in the series but, as Yoda might say, 'got it, it has'.

Heart is, in fact, Men In Black 3's greatest asset. It doesn't show its hand till the end, and it takes a little bit of time for you to compute what you're actually seeing but make no mistake: this is a big blockbuster, with a big box office, that didn't need to do what it goes and does. It goes and does heart.

The rest of it is a mixed bag. Agent J is a character which allows Will Smith to be big and loud and brash and he does all that well. Agent K is a character which allows Tommy Lee Jones to be gruff and clever and uninterested and he's going to do that anyway whether the director wants him to or not. Together they're still a great (miss)match, firing off one another well with jokes and, yes, heart.

Enter stage left Josh Brolin, in what could have been a disaster. It's not quite that bad, mainly because Brolin's Jones impression is incredible, but some of the pizazz in the bromance is lost; Brolin is stiff without being funny, whereas a scowl from Jones inherently carries a laugh with it. Michael Stuhlbarg's Griffin is quite annoying but thankfully marginalised whilst Jemaine Clement is unrecognisable (and good) as chief villain, Boris. Emma Thompson and Alice Eve get absolutely nothing to do.

The script by Etan Cohen doesn't bear the hallmarks of a hacked together article, reportedly only finished after the film got under way, in fact it seems coherent and snappy, with a good grasp of how its plot will come full circle under the machinations of time travel.

Certainly a better film than the second franchise outing, at times this even gets somewhere near to the first film. Those times are when Jones and Smith are back together, something which doesn't quite happen often enough to say this is an outright victory.

Men In Black 3 is out in the UK on DVD and Blu-ray from Monday 5th November 2012.