For this week’s Disc Dive we’re putting on the last suit we’ll ever wear with Men in Black.
Title: Men in Black
Director: Barry Sonnenfeld
Released: July 2, 1997 (Theatrical – Canada and the United States)
Runtime: 1 hour 38 minutes
Disc Format: DVD
Aliens. Yes, they’re real. Yes, they live amongst us.
We, as the general public, don’t know this. But the Men in Black do. They’re a small underfunded government agency whose responsibility is to monitor the aliens that live amongst the Earthlings. How do they keep all of this a secret? Well, they carry around a device known as the neuralyzer. Any time there’s been an event where the public have witnessed the Men in Black in action, their memories are erased using the neuralyzer. They can’t report to the press what they have no memory of even seeing.
This brings us to Kay (Tommy Lee Jones). His partner recently realized that the job was passing him by, so he asked Kay to use the neuralyzer on him as a way of retiring from the job. Now Kay needs to find himself a new partner.
Luckily, he doesn’t have to look too hard. NYPD officer James Darrell Edwards III (Will Smith) finds himself in a foot pursuit of a suspect. The suspect appears to have special abilities as he falls from heights and lands like a cat while also being able to scale walls. Officer Edwards is miraculously able to keep up with him, cornering the suspect on a rooftop. The suspect offers warnings about an incoming threat before leaping off the top of the building.
Agent K, impressed by James’ ability to keep up with the suspect, offers him the opportunity to come work for the Men in Black. After a series of tests, both written and physical, James Darrell Edwards III becomes known simply as Agent J.
The grizzled vet and the hotshot rookie now must work together to prevent the end of planet Earth.
Wild to think that it’s been almost 30 years since Men in Black was released. And you know what, visually it still holds up incredibly well. The look and design of both the aliens and the weaponry, the alien guts after an explosion, pretty much all of the special effects all manage to avoid looking like technology of its time.
What we get here is absolute peak Will Smith. He’s practically on top of the world coming off of both Bad Boys and Independence Day. He’s able to hold his own when the action calls for it and just absolutely crushes it on the comedy side of things. A lot of the comedy works as well as it does because Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones have incredible chemistry. They feed off of each other and their whole dynamic is better for it.
In fact, the cast as a whole is impressive. The supporting cast, stacked with the likes of Linda Fiorentino, Vincent D’Onofrio, Rip Torn, and Tony Shalhoub, all gel well and deliver exactly what is needed of them in their respective roles.
When you think of Men in Black, there are probably numerous images that pop into your head. Whether it be Tony Shalhoub’s head exploding, Vincent D’Onofrio and his sugar water, the aliens in the break room, Smith running down the alien in the streets, his MiB interview, the cricket gun, or even the talking pug. You know they’re coming, and when they do, they still land.
The action holds up. The comedy still lands. Men in Black is still as fun as it ever was.