A sequel review for the sequel of the biggest excuse for exposition… explosions since Michael Bay and DTV films. What follows is a somewhat accurate depiction of the film and somewhat copying my previous review (and when I mean somewhat, I mean it is nearly exactly the same… like this film!):

BOOM! BANG! BLAM BLAM BLAM! BOOM BOOM BOOM! ‘Heur her uer’ (Sylvester Stallone talking)! PEW PEW PEW! BOOM! CHOP! SLICE! POW! JET LI, MAN WITH A PAN! ‘Oi’ (Statham)! POW! BANG! BOOM GOES THE DYNAMITE! Talking… talking… so boring… banter… BOOM! BANG! BLAM BLAM BLAM! PEW PEW PEW!  OH WHAT THE! BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOOOOOOOOOOM! TANKS! JEEPS! ‘Ahshrahr’ (Schwarzeggar) LOTS OF FAKE CGI BLOOD! BLOOD, BLOOD, BLOOD! FUN FUN FUN!

 (Hint: Click on the image)

ONE LINERS! ONE LINER! ONE FOR YOU, STATH, ONE FOR YOU STALLONE!  ONE FOR YOU CHUCK NORRIS! EVERYONE GETS ONE! EVERYONE’S A ONE LINER! Plot point… NUCLEAR BOMBS! OLD SOVIET MINE! REVENGE AND JUSTICE AND AMERICA! Jean-Claude VAN DAMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMNNNN! HIGH KICKS! Needless subplots about Statham’s wife… SLAVERY IN EASTERN EUROPE! NO MATTER! WHOLE VILLAGES ‘TAKEN’ AND RESCUED! WHAT HAPPENED TO SIMON WEST AND WHY IS CON AIR STILL HIS BEST FILM? EUROPE PLUS FLAMES EQUALS AWESOME! EUROPE BURNS FOR AUDIENCES!

BRRR BRRR! BOOM BANG BOOM BOOM! F**K MAKING SENSE! BOOM! BANG! BLOOD! ONE-LINER! BANG! OLD JOKES… GETTING TOO OLD! I’M OLD! LOOK, I AM OLD! BUT BOOM! LOVE INTEREST FOR STALLONE! BANTER! KICKING ASS, TAKING ACTION TROPES AND WILL IT BLEND! NO, BUT BANG BANG BANG! WHO CARES! WE ARE AWESOME AND NOSTALGIA IS A BITCH TO YOUR IMAGINATION! Talking… talking… BOOM BOOM BOOOOOOMMMM STALLONE IS IN YOU ROOM F**KING UP BAD GUYS S**T!  BANG! KNIFE FIGHTS! GUN FIGHTS! EXPLOSIONS! FIST FIGHTS! EXPLOSIONS FOOT FIGHTS! Smaller explosions FIGHT FIGHTS! EXPLOSIONS! EXPLOSIONS! EXPLOSIONS! EXPOSITION! WAIT, NO!

Enough of the description, the film stands as a testament to action cinema of the past and the fact it is dying. One-liners, familiarity, and some quality use of explosive materials keeps this film afloat as good old fashioned entertainment is nearly sunk by a stupid storyline, needless sub-plots and a turgid second act that deserves to be exorcised. Van Damme is probably comes out best out of the film, as he seems to treat this with enough irrelevance to be a good villain to lackadaisical heroes those actors seem to have no heart in the project, and the calculated nature of having Hemsworth cast in the film.

In essence – same s**t, more explosions.

The first question when you come out of the cinema, asking a friend’s opinion or reading a review such as this one is to find out if a film is actually ‘good’. For some, they like nuance, the tailoring of the opinion to their specific criteria like ‘Does Kristen Stewart show her multiple emotions?’, ‘does this construct an interesting debate in feminist theory’, and the grand mainstay of YouTube comments, ‘do we see Charlize Theron naked?’

While I can answer these questions (1. sort of,  2. yes, 3. you do the math, it is PG-13), it always comes down to this: is the film actually, objectively ‘good’?

No.

What it is, however, is possibly the most entertainingly camp film I have seen in a long while. The film plot gets moving after a rather lengthy and lazy prologue to Snow White (Kristen Stewart) escaping into the dark forest, evading the clutches of the tyrannical Queen Ravenna (Charlize Theron) who wants to destroy her as she is not just the fairest of them all (note: this is a film, not reality), but also could ruin her kingdom. She forces the Huntsman (Chris Hemsworth) to track her down, but after a few moments, they are on their way to try and build an army.

Within the first moments of seeing this film, the script blunders through images that we have seen from countless other films, hoping that the overall idea of a dark Snow White story would help the film to achieve popularity. Its brazen attempt at something that could be called ‘epic’ instead makes for a rather droll, for lack of a better term, film, that I could not help but enjoy because of its countless flaws and train-wreck performances.

Overly-melodramatic in every sense of the word, film’s infrastructure is purely wrought emotions send this film into heady heights of ostentatiousness. The illogical jumps from plot point to plot point without discrimination, the débutant director Rupert Sanders seems to make fun any of the screenwriters’ attempts at narrative, with Charlize Theron as the figurehead of what is so right and what is so wrong with this film, defining it. Her performance takes the cake, runs with it, decided to put crack cocaine into it, and then fall off a cliff. Her villainess role is captivating as it rips chunks of the traditional fairytale into a hysterically critical take on stereotypical images of femininity and how it works in society. The film comments on male dominated hierarchies, as her only power is beauty in the world of men, used to control and by extension, control her… though without the nuance of a Game of Thrones episode, but the sledgehammer of a Lady Gaga-like music video.

The film is confused in its ideas, for example, do we praise Theron or not? As an allegory of an earlier generation’s feminism (feminism that confesses to being feminism) vs. post-modern feminism (‘feminism’ that says it isn’t ‘feminism’) a high degree of thematic confusion is created. The film does not clearly show what it wants to say as Theron’s performance and limited character development appears to be nearing dimensionality but not succeeding, making the film neither good vs. evil, nor provide an understandable character arc to drive the narrative. This leaves Kristen Stewart in even choppier waters, as this new symbol of femininity of the Twilight era seems to be very out of sync with her character or just her acting in general. It is oddly contrived, if somewhat interesting, to see how unevenly matched the two stars are and how the narrative attempts to justify Snow White’s duller counterpart as ‘fairest of them all’.

Truly, the film doesn’t even know what to do with many of its characters some of the time: Chris Hemsworth barely survives on pure charisma alone to come out of the film as modest in spite of a hideous Scottish accent and a cutting room’s worth of deleted scenes, as the film began with him narrating only at the beginning, never to return. The dwarfs make for stand-out comedic/dramatic/sincere performances by countless British thespians, but also seems entirely pointless and perfunctory, added in to appease the countless fans of their titular Disney counterparts, but remain inoffensive.

However, what adds to the film’s capriciousness in a positive manner (as for many of these films) is the film’s visual nature. Rupert Sanders creates a truly visual world that inexplicably has visual touches accompanied by the absurdity. Grieg Fraser, who did the cinematography for the scrumptious Bright Star, seems to be told to scope for beautiful images, only for the editing to obliterate them beyond all reason. The images stand out, or at least amaze in an unintentionally comedic way. It is a testament that the film does look like a great advertising campaign.

Sander’s hunt for images and motifs for the film could not help but have me transfixed on how many images this film borrows from other films: Stardust; Princess Mononoke; Robin Hood; even Inception. This post-modernistic streak stops before the audiences notices it too much, and somehow it gets away with it just by being brazen in its attempt to conduct a sincere, gritty take on Grimm’s fairytale.

In the end, I do not think I viewed the film the way the film-maker wanted. The film’s flaws became a vehicle for comedic/mercurial value, that while it had epic visuals, it was haphazardly combined with Mommie Dearest-like performance from Theron.  With confused themes about the role of feminism littered in and shallow characters, it was not good, but at least it’s pretty… interesting.

Generally, the rule of law for the high budget trilogy is the third one will either be bad, with exceptions like Toy Story 3 (or Return of the King or… ahem… Back to the Future Part III…) However, to start considering Men In Black 3 as a part of a trilogy is quite a stretch when you revisit the previous two films and compare character and thematic notes. Side characters are almost entirely absent, set design is wholly different, no Will Smith theme song, and a vast influx of lots of shiny CGI instead of tried-and-true make-up that give the film a familiar-but-not-really feel. What remains is Will Smith’s persona, unchanged in a ten year hourglass from the last film, but suffering with noticeable fatigue. As the previous films situated almost in an entirely different decade, we could consider that this film might be a reboot that no one saw coming… even by the film-makers themselves.

Will Smith, coming from a notably long four year absence from the big screen, and Tommy Lee Jones return to their signature characters, Agent J and Agent K. The film starts with Boris the Animal (Jemaine Clement), a nasty alien who I cannot really describe outside of biker stereotype, escaping from a super-max prison (on the moon, naturally) to get revenge on Agent K, who ruined his plan to allow Earth to be conquered by his species, took off his arm and put him in prison. As J and K start to investigate, J finds that K has pretty much disappeared from time itself and that the invasion has begun. To stop the destruction of the human race, J has to travel back in time, pair up with Agent K of 1969 (Josh Brolin), a happy-go-lucky Junior Agent, and stop Boris succeeding in destroying the ArcNet, the only thing that will stop the invasion… while also finding out how Junior K turned into someone dispassionate and cold.

If you look too closely at the time travel element of the plot, you find the whole fabric of the narrative is undone by logic. It is not just the idea of time travel being inherently illogical, but that in at least the first Men in Black film Tommy Lee Jones’ Agent K is very much similar to Brolin’s happy-go-lucky professional (who not only successfully mimics but encapsulates the character and steals the film), rather than grumpy older Agent K of this film.

What we can see is that either this film fails to adhere to the original characterisation (with its messy production history likely to be the reason), or we have effectively encountered a new time continuum where this film exists away from the other films. Does this character arc work? Sure; whilst it is an affront to K and J’s relationship in the first movie, rendering it uncanon, it does not make the film that bad. Giving the film an emotional bedrock that was entirely unexpected, Sonnenfeld allows Smith and Brolin to work together and bring in great chemistry as an effective comedic/dramatic duo, almost reliving the experiences of the first film, as they encounter some inspired comedic sequences (Andy Warhol being a particular highlight). With this, it also brings in an emotional resonance that can only be described as fraternal and paternal care and affection that blindsides us. Despite a lackluster villain from the usually excellent Clement, who comes off as too comedic to be a credible threat, the emotional effect is in no way reduced, but supports the film as a whole as the duo’s chemistry stops it being a Will Smith retrospective.

Without the emotional elements coming into the foreground and the Smith/Brolin chemistry however, the rest of the film would have sunk without a trace. The film begins with tired jokes that even felt strained in Men in Black 2, nearly destroying the film before J could go back in time. Nevertheless, what the film truly lacks is the kind of insight or quirkness that gave the original a certain off kilter edge; while impressive sequences entertain, such as the demonstration of time travel as literally travelling through time by falling from a tall building, there is no true sense of charm or sense of place, as much of the action fails to captivate in overly clean CGI/studio set environments. The film attempts to give creedence to the original’s ‘Am I alone in the galaxy’ message (here’s a non-spoilery clue: we’re not talking about aliens) but it only works haphazardly, because as much as Michael Stuhlbarg’s Griffin tries to add a spiritual, meaning of life aspect to the plot, the film loses its focus too quickly, trying to cover many bases instead of keeping it simple.

Will Smith seemed to have lost control over his star persona after his absence, but with Men in Black 3, it is guaranteed to last for at least a few more films. This film on the other hand, while a positively entertaining experience with much to commend, is a throwaway tale with a little bit of thematic heft that cannot stand too close to the near-classic original, especially in the boresome first act. It does, however, surpass Men in Black 2; even if it eats a few of its dire leftovers.