Men in Black 3

Does this one count as a Shots on the Blog review? Well, the franchise is about a couple of agents tasked with policing alien activity on earth; this latest (and belated) instalment starts with a prison break; and the plot centres around an attempt to prevent a murder. Yeah, that’s good enough for Shots inclusion.

Remember when the original ‘Men in Black’ was released in 1997? It was fun, frothy, irreverent and inventive; it boasted a who’d-a-thunk-it double act between Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones that was quite simply a delight; and it’s hour and a half running time made for a slick blockbuster that utterly entertained and never outstayed its welcome.

The sequel appeared five years later. And it was “meh”. Five freakin’ years and they served us up an instantly forgettable piece of mediocrity. In the meantime, director Barry Sonnenfeld’s career nosedived. He’d proceeded ‘Men in Black 2’ with the misjudged ‘Wild Wild West’ and the just plain awful ‘Big Trouble’; he followed it with ‘RV: Runaway Vacation’, a film I’ve only seen ten minutes of which left me feeling profoundly despondent. Six years working in television followed.

To say I approached ‘Men in Black 3’ with trepidation is putting it mildly. To say I enjoyed it is nothing short of miraculous.

Not that the first twenty minutes or so are that promising. In short order, galactic uber-criminal Boris the Animal (Jemaine Clement) breaks out of a maximum security compound on the moon; then we’re reintroduced to Agents J (Smith) and K (Jones) ten years on from their last appearance, and several scenes of forced and un-engaging dialogue try to remind us how zippy the banter used to be. Following an okayish set-piece at a Chinese restaurant, some semblance of a plot kicks in. It turns out that Boris got sent down after being apprehended by K and he’s out for a little payback courtesy of a time-jump device, transporting himself back to the 1960s to assassinate K.

In the here and now, J suddenly finds himself bereft of his partner and perplexed as to why none of his colleagues can remember K. Then the full extent of Boris’s anarchic plans come to light and earth finds itself on the verge of defeat from an alien invasion. J travels back in time, intent on stopping Boris and under the dire warning to keep clear of K lest he create a paradox. The moment J steps into the late 60s, the film picks up no end. And when he encounters a forty-years-younger K (Josh Brolin), ‘Men in Black 3’ really hits his stride.

Brolin is the filmmaker’s secret weapon. He reverse engineers Tommy Lee Jones’s characterisation so perfectly that it’s not imitation or parody, but a damn good performance in its own right. Moreover, the chemistry between J and the younger K in this movie is reminiscent of that between J and the original K first time round. ‘Men in Black 3’ marks a return to the tone and style of the first film, and that can only be a good thing. There are some great visual jokes and nice concepts (Sixties counterculture provides an effective touchstone), the script plays fair with the time travel elements, and even if a late-in-the-game scene attempts to push the emotional buttons a bit too hamfistedly I’m prepared to turn a blind eye. It’s nice to see the MIBs back in a film that’s actually entertaining.

Hallowe'en Triple Bill

The glow-in-the-dark bats are glowing in the dark, the illuminated pumpkin is trying to disassociate itself from how crap a movie 'Halloween III: Season of the Witch' is, the nibbles are arrayed in bowls on the coffee table, the wine is poured and Paula pulls the first title out of the witches' cauldron.

Way-hey! One from the faves list.

PERSONAL FAVES: A Tale of Two Sisters

Getting the triple bill in and posting before midnight means thumbnail write-ups and this film suits brevity down to the ground. There's almost nothing you can say about it - you certainly can't get into a discussion about director Kim Jee-Woon's genius for misdirection and the keeping of crucial things under wraps - without spoiling the twist.

Although perhaps twist is the wrong word. Twist implies something that's thrown in at the last minute to take you by surprise. What 'A Tale of Two Sisters' has is one fuck-off big hum-dinger of a narrative development; it comes about two-thirds of the way through and forces you to re-evaluate everything you've seen up to this point. But Jee-Woon's not satisfied with that and the last half hour or so takes the film into ever darker territory.

Giving nothing away, I'll just say this: it's about guilt (this applies to more than one character); you might think that one of the characters is a ghost (they kind of are and aren't); pay attention to the cringeingly embarrassing dinner party (it's all about perspectives: who sees what).

It's a beautifully shot, incredibly well acted and infinitely creepy piece of work. It proves that 'The Ring' doesn't necessarily have the monopoly on freaky women with lank black hair creeping slowly towards you. It blends psychological horror with arguably the best take on the haunted house movie since Robert Wise's 'The Haunting'. It yields up its many facets and ambiguities with repeated viewings: think 'Memento' or 'The Prestige', but with the requirement that you shelter behind the sofa to watch much of it.

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A short break, the topping up of drinks, a bit of mood music ('Danse Macabre' by Saint-Saens), then the next title is drawn:

Land of the Dead

The most maligned of Romero's zombie sequence (even the decidedly hit-and-miss 'Diary of the Dead' got better reviews). Nonetheless, 'Land of the Dead' is a film I enjoy for its socio-political themes, and one that I see as the logical conclusion of the critique of Americana that spans 'Night', 'Dawn' and 'Day' and pretty much makes 'Diary' superfluous. The zombies evolve, fall in behind a leader, revenge themselves on a surviving core of humanity who have become so inured they treat the living dead as sideshow entertainments. Maybe it should have been called 'Sympathy for the Dead'.

Plenty to love: Asia Argento's tough-chick performance; the 'Shaun of the Dead' stars in an inspired cameo; supporting roles by Dennis Hopper and John Leguizamo ("I still prefer him as Chichi," Paula comments*). Then there's the whole post-9/11 American insularity subtext ...

But enough. My musings on Romero's ground-breaking sequence have already been documented on this blog, here, here, here, here and here.

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Another short break, another gothic tune (Mussorgsky's 'Night on the Bare Mountain'), then it's heads-down-and-see-you-at-the-end. Here we go: the final title is picked.

Oh.

The Addams Family

Barry Sonnenfeld: a master of style over substance. Yes, 'The Addams Family' looks great. Yes, everyone's perfectly cast. Yes, it's a pleasant little diversion after the head-fuck of 'A Tale of Two Sisters' and the viscera of 'Land of the Dead', but I find myself wishing it was the sequel, with its gloriously subversive summer camp subplot and expanded role for Christina Ricci's deliciously deadpan Wednesday, that we were watching.


* 'To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar' up next on The Agitation of the Mind? Watch this space.