Take out two Galactic Standard Weeks of your time to see “Men in Black” at the Memorial Union Terrace
I didn’t think twice about skipping last summer’s Men in Black 3. Admittedly, I’ve never even stuck through the end of Men in Black 2, and that’s only when it pops up on basic cable. But I have seen Barry Sonnenfeld’s original sci-fi comedy send-up enough times to know how long a Galactic Standard Week is. (It’s one hour.)
Weird doses of sci-fi are certainly present in Men in Black — take the intergalactic peacekeeping bureau’s flying “Ford P.O.S.” and of course the memory-wiping neuralyzer — but the film intentionally keeps its techie trappings at surface level, affording the opportunity for moments like the Noisy Cricket’s tiny gun gag. In addition to doing away with the original Aircel comic series’ focus on investigating not just aliens but vampires, ghosts, and werewolves, Ed Solomon’s screenplay keeps a distance between all that extraterrestrial violence and the film’s terrific lead performances from Tommy Lee Jones and Will Smith.
By 1997, Will Smith was already a bona fide star, hot off big action roles in Bad Boys and Independence Day, the latter of which afforded Smith the chance to save America and President Bill Pullman from aliens. In many ways, Roland Emmerich’s 1996 high spectacle invasion feels like a precursor for Smith in Men in Black, where his brash NYPD cop James Darrell Edwards beats up alien baddies with a cocksure attitude and comedic timing. Against Jones’ seasoned Agent K and Rip Torn’s dry MiB guru Zed, Smith’s Agent J is a stellar fish out of water, and where a lesser buddy cop film might have the vets learn a thing or two from the rookie, J’s ultimately the one who changes. Beneath the “intergalactic keggers” and regenerating heads of pawn shop clerks, Men in Black respects the suits its characters wear and teaches its youngsters a thing or two about propriety. Apart from showing precisely why Will Smith was such a hot commodity long before the days of After Earth, Men in Black answers the time-worn question of “Are we alone in the universe?” with its own sly reality check: “Of course we’re not alone, slick. Where do you think Elvis went?”
- Men in Black plays FREE at the Memorial Union Terrace tonight at 9:00p as part of WUD Film’s continuing Lakeside Cinema series.