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Sep 26 2012
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Books

Summer Reading Wrapup

With summer officially over, it’s time for some stub reviews!

Return of the King by J.R.R. Tolkien
I finally understand all the popular complaints about Tolkien’s writing style. Although his descriptive passages were often quite dense in Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers, they at least directly related to what was going on in the story. Return of the King is when I frequently found myself realizing I had no idea what was actually happening and had to backtrack through several tangents of random description before finding any actual narration. Although Tolkien’s verbose style never bothered me previously, here it did dramatically impact my ability to enjoy the book. I was able to enjoy the book, but it was a bit of a chore to get through. I don’t know if I’ve ever said this about a book before, but here it is: I liked the movie better.

Shadows in Flight by Orson Scott Card
At this point, the Ender’s Game series has been going on for so long that you’d think it would only have two options: stagnation or radical departure. Shadows in Flight is proof that this series suffers from neither. And it even delivers one of the series’ signature moments of understanding when one of its main characters literally sees through an alien’s eyes. It remains unconscionable to me that someone with the intolerant views that Mr. Card has so often espoused writes so often and so well about understanding someone with a completely different perspective, but he somehow does so brilliantly.

Resistance (Rising, #1) by Laura Josephsen
In the interest of full disclosure, yes: I do know the author. But that’s really just an added perk. This is exactly the kind of book I want to read more of, but Amazon.com doesn’t exactly have a search filter for, “Yeah, I’d like a fantasyish book with a distinctive setting that gives it flavor without overwhelming it, but which is actually mostly focused on developing characters and relationships and has really great pacing and this sort of tone which I can’t really think of a good word for.”

(Here it is on Amazon, or the Kindle version is only $4.99)

Batman: The Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller and Klaus Janson
I really wish someone had explained to me that I needed to read this before seeing The Dark Knight Rises. After reading this, I now know where most of the plot of the film came from, and actually have a greater appreciation for it as a loose adaptation of The Dark Knight Returns that actually is more true to the spirit of Batman than the comic it’s adapting. (Yeah, I went there.)

The Dark Knight Returns has an almost cinematic quality to it. I admire Miller’s work here and I understand this comic’s significance in the evolution of Batman, but I’m also glad that this interpretation of the character did not survive wholesale in later iterations. Instead, this is what Batman would be like if he had been created by Frank Miller (including all of his awkward hangups about women and politics.) I will say that I like the noir flavor and think it works quite well for Batman, I just think it would’ve worked better if he had acted more like… Batman.

So, in short, this is a brilliantly composed comic and I think I might hate it.

Fifty Shades of Grey by E.L. James
You know what? No. This is getting its own entry.

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Aug 26 2012
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Film

My Least Favorite Superhero Films. #4: Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009)

As previously noted, I am well aware of the fact that including the Transformers franchise in a discussion of superhero films is not uncontroversial.

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#4. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009)


(Pictured: what should’ve been happening for THE ENTIRE FRIGGING MOVIE.)

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is one of the worst films I’ve ever seen. It wasn’t just disappointing because I liked the first film, it was disappointing because I have, on occasion, enjoyed the medium of film.

In my review of Transformers (2007), I alluded to the fact that almost everything good about Transformers was bad in Revenge of the Fallen. Well, okay, that’s not entirely true. It would be more accurate to say that every bad part of Transformers was magnified, and the good parts nearly disappear.

I’m going to talk about the good things this film does first, because that’ll take about thirty seconds. Steve Jablonsky is back, and actually collaborated with Linkin Park on the score which was pretty cool, although I didn’t really notice any tracks as stunningly awesome as “Arrival on Earth” from the first film. Starscream’s servile but antagonistic relationship with Megatron is wonderful and should’ve been given more screentime. The film has two outstanding scenes: Optimus Prime (Peter Cullen)’s death (in which he is able to temporarily singlehandedly fend off several Decepticons in a brutal fight) and Optimus’s resurrection (featuring the film’s only touching character moment, between him and Sam.)

You could actually make a good film out of this film’s few good scenes, the problem is it would only be about half an hour long. Major Lennox (Josh Duhamel) and Sam would be the only human characters in it, Optimus Prime would be the only Autobot with any real dialogue, Mikaela (Megan Fox) wouldn’t paint a motorcycle while bending upside down at an awkward angle so she can show her ass off to the camera, the combined forces of the U.S. military and Autobots wouldn’t blow up half of Shanghai to capture a Decepticon that seemed to be doing absolutely nothing of any consequence, and a whole lot of non-white characters wouldn’t have been introduced as ethnic stereotypes. Certainly, one of the first film’s stronger characters (Agent Simmons, played by John Turturro) wouldn’t have been turned into an ethnic stereotype.

Yeah, let’s just dive right into this. Toward the beginning of Transformers, we actually had a very positive portrayal of a Qatari man helping Lennox and his soldiers find safety and the use of a telephone. Apparently that didn’t test well with audiences or something, because every single non-white character in Revenge of the Fallen, including Sam’s roommate Leo (Ramon Rodriguez) is a shockingly transparent ethnic stereotype. We don’t even limit the fun to human characters, as there are two Autobots (given the most dialogue of any Autobot other than Optimus) that many fans refer to only as “the Racist Twins.” Because, you know: not being white is hilarious.

No, you know what? That’s not enough. Let’s throw in some sexism, too! Like the fact that every single woman at Michael Bay’s idea of what college looks like is throwing themselves at every male with a pulse. Or that a college “party” apparently resembles an upscale strip club. (Women don’t party! They dance around so men can enjoy looking at them while they party!) We’re even willing to throw logic right out the window, because Sam is attacked by what at first appears to be a sexually aggressive girl but turns out to be a Decepticon in disguise. Yep! Decepticons can take human form! Good thing this is the only time they use that ability. (Seriously.)

Yeah, this film is a giant mess of racism and sexism. But it isn’t just that it’s racist and sexist (there are some examples of both in much better films), it’s that the racism and sexism were so clearly part of a calculated decision to appeal to the kind of lowest-common-denominator humor that exploits these kinds of things. And even when the film isn’t being racist or sexist (which does happen… occasionally), much of the dialogue and many of the situations are so forced that enjoying this film would require actual effort on the part of the viewer.

Finally, the bizarre decision to give the human characters an expanded role in the sequel is one I will never quite understand. Having the first film be a sort of “human-eye” view of the Transformers made a lot of sense, because it introduced us to them in a way we could relate to, and gave us an idea of the incredible scale of these titans. The logical next step there was to ditch Sam, Mikaela, and friends (or at least dramatically scale down their role) and make the giant robots the movie is named after do the heavy lifting.

It really feels like Michael Bay took a look at his main characters from the first film and thought, “Okay, I have all these characters, so I guess I need to figure out something to have them do in the second film.” This is most glaringly obvious in Mikaela’s part in the film. There’s actually no reason for her to be in the film at all, so Bay concocts a subplot for her that actually breaks the logic of the film entirely. As a result of her solo adventures, when she meets back up with Sam she has a piece of the AllSpark in her purse. You know. The AllSpark. The thing that the Decepticons use a similar shard from to resurrect Megatron? Clearly it could’ve been used to resurrect Optimus, but the film seems to completely forget that Mikaela has it. It’s never mentioned again.

I imagine the film’s action scenes are supposed to make up for this, but for all the slow-motion footage of Megan Fox’s boobs, the action scenes all seemed to be in blurry fast-motion. You can never really tell what’s going on. I was willing to forgive this in the first film to some extent, but it really got old in a hurry here.

The cliché with film series is to say after the first film, “Okay, we got the introductions out of the way, now we can get into what we really want to do.” In Bay’s case, the audience would’ve been much better off never seeing Bay with that kind of freedom, because one of two things happened. Either he had no idea what he wanted to do, or what he wanted to do was just plain bad.

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Aug 08 2012
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Film

Better Than Advertised

I get why everyone’s hating on Total Recall (2012). I really do. Hating on remakes is all the rage lately. Actually, it has been for a while. Pretty much every year, Wikipedia’s entry on “[Year] in Film” declares that the current year is notable for breaking the previous record for the most sequels, prequels, and remakes in a given calendar year.

And you know what? Total Recall is a pretty bad remake, actually. Most of the elements from the original film are in there out of obligation (imagine the uproar if there had been no three-breasted woman), and the whole “memory loss”/”what’s real?” part of the plot is actually the least interesting thing about the film. That being said (yeah, that didn’t really seem like “that being said” territory, did it?), I actually really liked this film for two pretty distinct reasons.

The first relates to this film’s place in the science fiction genre. Science fiction films generally come in two flavors: films that take place in the distant future, or films that take place in a completely different world that has little or no relation to our own. In the former case, we get a phenomenon that is (sometimes pejoratively, sometimes affectionately) referred to as “The Future According to the 60s!” (or whatever decade in which the film in question was produced.)

Opinions on this phenomenon are pretty sharply divided, but I happen to fall quite squarely in the “pro” column. As a student of history, I find it fascinating to no end to see what artists in various time periods thought “the future” was going to look like.

Although the setting of this film was a post-apocalyptic future, it did offer some insight into what “The Future According to the 2010s” looks like to these filmmakers. Guns looked somewhat similar to how they look now, though some of them do really awesome things like wrap glowing cables around someone, immediately restraining them. Cell phones? Well there’s a good question. How do we account for the fact that cell phones are already way more advanced than anyone thought any communications technology would be? Well, agents of the government have them implanted in their hands. And they can use any glass that might be on hand as a giant phone screen for video calls and other visuals. And don’t even get me started on magnetic cars.

My scifi nerd is showing, but I really can’t be the only person who enjoyed this aspect of the film, right? Isn’t that one of the reasons we like science fiction so much in the first place? The “hey, cool!” factor, if you will?

If that didn’t quite do it for you, how about the strong female characters? Kate Beckinsale plays Lori, a deadly secret agent who quickly becomes the film’s primary antagonist and who proceeds to scare the living shit out of the audience with how believably she plays a highly-trained, stone-cold killer. On the flip side, we get Jessica Biel as resistance fighter Melina. And the hate-chemistry between these two characters was absolutely delicious early on. The biggest complaint I have about this film is that it didn’t choose to capitalize on this with the huge fight between these two that it was more than hinting at.

The males weren’t half-bad either. I know a lot of people aren’t high on him, but I’ve enjoyed every film I’ve seen so far with Colin Farrell as the lead (this, The Recruit, and S.W.A.T.), and I think he’s a fine choice for an action film. Bryan Cranston was good as corrupt politician Chancellor Cohaagen, but I have to admit I was pretty disappointed with how they expanded his role toward the end of the film and minimized Beckinsale’s.

Overall, I think this film’s deepest flaw is the title: Total Recall. I’m reminded of the story of the I, Robot film. I, Robot is a pretty neat science fiction film starring Will Smith. What it isn’t is an adaptation of Isaac Asimov’s short story collection of the same name. You can be forgiven if you’re confused by that, what with it having the same title and the late Asimov’s name in the credits. You see, what happened is that someone came up with this really awesome, original science fiction script. The studio more or less said, “That’s nice, but we need a title people will recognize.”

The difference with Total Recall is that I frankly don’t really care all that much about the original film that was being adapted here. Sorry to commit sacrilege and all, but this was an Arnold Schwarzenegger film I wasn’t overly impressed by. I also don’t know where this film came from (probably it wasn’t remotely the same situation as I, Robot). I can tell you as a viewer that the “secret agent whose memory was erased” angle was the least interesting part of the film, and felt like it was there entirely because it had to be there. (Maybe because, I don’t know, it was called Total Recall.)

Ignoring any relationship this had to the Arnold Schwarzenegger film of the same name, I thought this was a thoroughly entertaining action/science fiction film with a couple of perks that pushed the right buttons for me. It might not be a good remake (again: didn’t care for the original, so I don’t care), but it was a thoroughly enjoyable film.

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Jul 27 2012
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Film

My Least Favorite Superhero Films. #11: Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011)

#11. Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011)

The English language might not contain a more backhanded compliment than, “It wasn’t as bad as Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.” Clearly one of the most direct applications of this statement is its direct sequel, Transformers: Dark of the Moon. Is it better than Revenge of the Fallen? Yes. Absolutely. No question about it. Is it good? NO!!!

It’s awkward that I want to spend so much time here referring to my (spoiler alert) forthcoming review of Revenge of the Fallen, but that film so thoroughly exposed Michael Bay’s hackery for what it was, to the point that there was actually little this film could do to follow up on that. A lot of what makes Dark of the Moon ”not that bad” is what makes Revenge of the Fallen “that” bad.

Make no mistake: Dark of the Moon is awful, just in more conventional ways. It’s an overly-long, scifi-without-the-sci/action film that takes itself far too seriously. The final battle in Chicago drags on and on for what feels like three hours. A battle of this scale that cost this much money should not be boring.

This was not the film’s only flaw, just the most expensive one. The narrative structure alternates between boring and confusing. What little emotion this film contains, you miss if you happen to take a bathroom break when the Autobots are forced to leave the earth (true story.) Characters (like Tyrese Gibson as Robert Epps) show up out of nowhere for no apparent reason and then become incredibly important to the plot. Meanwhile, due to Megan Fox’s very public exit, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley plays Sam Witwicky’s (Shia LaBeouf) new girlfriend, Carly Spencer… whose relationship with Sam is never actually introduced or explained, it just sort of exists. We never really learn anything about how or why they fell in love, but that relationship ends up serving as Sam’s primary motivation for saving the world in one of the biggest clichés ever shoehorned into a film.

Really, large segments of this film feel like Bizarro Transformers. Everything that made the first film good seems to have its mirror image in the third one, making this film bad and wrong for all the reasons the first film was good and right. Looking at all three Transformers films, it seems to me that all Michael Bay knows how to do well is essentially shout at the audience, “Look how cool this is!” (which he did quite well in the first film), and he’s lost when he has to construct an actual narrative out of it.

Perhaps representing a gross overreaction to Revenge of the Fallen (if there can be such a thing), Dark of the Moon isn’t the same kind of trainwreck; it’s just unbelievably dull. Sorry for the somewhat shorter entry, but hey: at least it wasn’t as phoned in as Transformers: Dark of the Moon.

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Jul 02 2012
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Gaming

Believe the Hype: Half-Life 2

I’m so late in the game (pun unintentional) on this one it seems silly for me to even attempt to review Half-Life 2. There is really nothing I can say about it that hasn’t already been said. But I did (finally) just beat it for the first time, so I guess I might as well say it anyway.

Story
Half-Life 2 doesn’t exactly pick up right where Half-Life left off. Well… it does and it doesn’t. You might remember, the end of the first Half-Life saw Gordon Freeman put in a sort of stasis by the G-Man so he could be retrieved if he was needed again. Well… he’s certainly needed again. You wake up on a train in a dystopian future where the earth has been conquered by alien invaders.

The Half-Life games don’t so much “have” a story as they live in one. There aren’t a few cutscenes here and there to show you what’s going on, you experience what’s going on. All of the dialogue and “cinematic” events of the game happen without any break from the gameplay. You see them happen as though you are Gordon Freeman. And it works because of how incredibly detailed the world is.

And the weakest part of the first game, the alien world Xen which I found so unbelievably boring? Gone. Fixed. Instead, the aliens are here on earth, but we still get an incredibly alien environment with the Citadel, an enormous structure whose scale is just absolutely mind-boggling, and whose environment is utterly alien in a much more interesting way than Xen. 5/5.

Audio/Visual
Half-Life was great for its time in this category, but Half-Life 2 represents an enormous leap forward. The graphics hold up even today. And, as already mentioned, it’s the incredible attention to detail in this game that makes it a truly immersive experience. 5/5.

Gameplay
The weapons selection is fantastic, and the biggest addition in this regard (the gravity gun) is one of the most genuinely fun features I’ve ever seen in a first-person shooter. Valve has a reputation for enjoying playing with physics, and you can really see that here. The controls are spectacular, the vehicles are fun to pilot, the fights are challenging and fun. 5/5.

Overall
It’s a sublime experience when a game actually lives up to all of the hype surrounding it. The gameplay mechanics are excellent, but it’s really the incredible detail of the environment that makes this game so brilliant. It’s clearly one of the greatest first-person shooters of all time, and a forerunner of pretty much every immersive science fiction shooter.  5/5.

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Jun 19 2012
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Television

Doctor WHO?

A number of years ago, a very good friend of mine insisted that I watch Doctor Who. She had me watch several episodes of series 1 (2005.) What I had been promised (rather aggressively) was a show that was “better than Star Trek and Star Wars combined!” Although I had little doubt I would find this claim to be wild exaggeration, I did imagine that the show would be at least passably good.

Instead, I saw several episodes of what seemed to be a pretty terrible show. The writing unwisely made the show’s cheesy special effects more or less the centerpiece of the show, but you could hardly blame them as the alternative was focusing on the incredibly awkward actors. I also never quite got over the fact that the music sounded like a bad porn groove. Defenders of the show describe all of this as “cheesy.”

Yeah, no. “Cheesy” I can handle. This wasn’t cheesy. It was bad. There’s a huge difference. So, of course, I figured my experience with Doctor Who was over, and I could relegate it to the realm of things that other people liked and I didn’t. (Note: I don’t spend a lot of time complaining or caring about what other people like and I don’t. What’s the point?)

That was indeed the case until quite recently. A very good friend of mine insisted that I watch Doctor Who. He had me watch the first episode of series 5 (2010.) After doing so, I find myself with a very simple question.

Is this the same show?

The first, most immediately apparent difference was the music. I’m not going to try to argue that it’s great by any general standard, but it’s definitely at least reasonably good. It goes from being a major distraction to being exactly what a television soundtrack is supposed to be if it’s not spectacular: something in the background that enhances the overall viewing experience.

But the real difference was the writing and acting. I was absolutely astonished by how much better the acting is here than in what I saw of series 1. The special effects are still (pardon the pun) nothing special, but that’s not a huge concern when the writing wisely focuses its attention on the characters.

Obviously I have a long way to go with this series, and series 6, and 7 when it comes out if it continues with its current cast. (I am obviously avoiding spoilers, so I have no idea.) In any case, this is a very promising start that I really didn’t anticipate.

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Jun 08 2012
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Fandom, Film, Television

Everyone’s Least Favorite Star Trek: The Next Generation Film

If you asked Star Trek fans what their least favorite Star Trek: The Next Generation film was, odds are the vast majority of them would say it was Star Trek Generations. If you went so far as to ask why, I suspect the most common answer would be that it’s “boring.”

Frankly, Star Trek Generations is pretty easily my favorite Star Trek: The Next Generation film. My reasoning is simple: it’s the one that really “feels” like a longer episode of The Next Generation, except without “Everything Goes Back to Normal Syndrome.” The episodic nature of the Star Trek television series has often prevented them from taking risks or making significant changes to characters. Oftentimes, they would have characters go through life-changing experiences only to have them somehow retconned by the end of the episode so someone who missed that episode wouldn’t be confused by their behavior or circumstances in the next one.

At this point, many will complain that a Star Trek: The Next Generation film shouldn’t feel like a longer episode with higher stakes, but that raises a very important question: who are you making this film for? Fans of Star Trek: The Next Generation, or people who haven’t ever seen the show? Obviously Hollywood will pick the second option. After all, they’re in this to make money, not continue the Star Trek series in a faithful way. While I don’t think it would’ve been impossible to do both, the later films didn’t, they merely chose to err in the opposite direction. So while Star Trek Generations is pretty clearly not the right formula for success with a general audience, given my choice between the style of Generations (seeming “too much” like the show) and First Contact, Insurrection, and Nemesis (seeming loosely based on the show), as a Next Generation fan I’ll take the former.

Unlike its sequels, which seem like action films with the Star Trek slapped onto the title, Generations is a gleeful combination of legitimately interesting plot and unapologetic fan service. Let’s ignore the parts with Captain Kirk (yes, I know that’s difficult for a lot of people to do), because as you’ll recall I’m talking about this as a Next Generation film. The film introduces us to the crew at Worf’s promotion ceremony, giving several characters (notably Worf, Riker, and Data) a chance to shine. At the ceremony, Picard receives shocking personal news which will lead to a deep conversation with Counselor Troi later in the film. After Picard’s departure, the ceremony is interrupted by a distress call, and Riker calls for red alert and battle stations, and we’re off to the main plot of the film!

As the main plot of the film (and the ensuing investigation) continues, we get the aforementioned emotional conversation with Picard and Troi, and see the realization of one of the most important unresolved subplots of the series (Data’s emotion chip), which will continue to effect his character arc throughout the film before culminating in a highly charged argument with Captain Picard. The pace continues much like a Star Trek: The Next Generation episode… until Dr. Soran blows up a star, and a Klingon Bird of Prey shows up.

During the ensuing pursuit, Data must come to terms with all of the consequences of having emotions, and the final battle between the Bird of Prey and the Enterpise (with Riker in command) is unique among Star Trek movie action scenes because it actually seems to follow the “rules” of the show. It isn’t on a dramatically larger scale than any action scene we’ve seen on the show, but again, because of the “raised stakes” of the film, the outcome and consequences (the Enterpise-D‘s evacuation and destruction) are able to be dramatically different.

Star Trek: First Contact did at least continue the theme of picking up on somewhat unresolved plots (Picard’s experiences with the Borg)  and shows us a profoundly important historical event (the titular First Contact with the Vulcans, which was a pleasant surprise even though it seems pretty obvious in retrospect). But Picard’s experiences with the Borg aren’t really explained so much as they are used as a thinly-veiled excuse to make an action film and call it Star Trek. Like the next two films, First Contact jumps at any chance to transform Captain Picard into “Jean Luc Picard, Action Hero!” (though, it seems somewhat less farfetched here.) While I enjoyed Star Trek: Insurrection and Star Trek: Nemesis purely from an entertainment standpoint, they seem to be action films that bear little relation to the Star Trek franchise as a whole, and don’t even try to hide behind a storyline from the television series like First Contact did.

But if you’re a fan of Star Trek: The Next Generation, I assume that means you’re a fan of the characters, pacing, tone, and themes of the show, so it honestly blows my mind that you can be a fan of the show and have Generations not be your favorite of the four.

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Jun 02 2012
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Film

Black to the Future

Men in Black III was a lot better than Men in Black II, and I’m not even one of those people who hates on Men in Black II. The reasons why it’s better are fairly transparently obvious. For one thing, the concept is more original. Perhaps more importantly, though the surprise twist at the end of Men in Black II was one of the underappreciated film’s strengths (and really the emotional heart of the film), the twist in Men in Black III was much better. It was more interesting in and of itself, much more well-executed, and, while Men in Black II‘s twist had a profound emotional impact on Agent J, Men in Black III‘s had a defining effect on both main characters and their relationship.

Going into the film, one of my biggest concerns was that, based on the trailers, Tommy Lee Jones would not be playing Agent K for a majority of the film. The entire time travel angle seemed pretty gimmicky and potentially cheesy to me. So, naturally, Josh Broslin was brilliant and it was one of the biggest strengths of the film. Seriously: Broslin absolutely nailed Jones’ character. In fact, my biggest complaint about the film is that K seemed badly out of character during the act of the film, during which Tommy Lee Jones was playing him.

Agent O (Emma Thompson), the new head of the MIB, was one of my favorite side characters, and I would love to see her developed more. Emma Thompson is a wonderful actress, the character’s possible history with K gives him much more depth as a character, and (warning: this is highly superficial) she seemed to be doing a bit of Hillary Clinton channeling. (It wouldn’t be the first time.)

One of the coolest (and most likely to end up being underrated) parts of this film was the character of Griffin (Michael Stuhlbarg), an alien who is able to see all possible futures. This is the best evidence in the film that the creative team realizes that they’re supposed to use their imaginations to show the audience things that make us say, “Now that is freaking cool.” Really, it’s one of the best examples I’ve seen in any recent film.

Was this film perfect? Well, no. As I already mentioned, K was bizarrely out of character at the beginning of the film, but that’s indicative of what kind of problems the film had: most of the things it got wrong deal more with the franchise than they did with its success as an action comedy film. Really, I can’t think of any way in which it fell short by that measure.

Before I get into the slightly nitpicky problems I had with the film, it only seems fair stop here and coment on a silly thing I liked a whole lot. This might be the most trivial comment I will ever make about any film, I love the fact that Men in Black isn’t one of these franchises jumping on the “let’s stop numbering our sequels and just use subtitles even if the previous sequels were numbered.” Seriously. That bugs me so much.

Now. As one of the few people who actually liked Men in Black II, let me say this: one of the coolest things about the movie was Agent J asserting himself as a veteran, experienced agent. He was basically running the MIB, and it was clear everyone was looking up to him as the sort of role model that K had been. The thing is, the rest of that film (and this film) basically took a hammer to that entire concept to reestablish him as K’s clueless partner. I understand that dynamic works for them, but there would have been plenty of ways to have that dynamic while still playing up the fact that J was one of the top dogs now. He does mention being a Senior Agent, but there’s a “show, don’t tell” problem here. Men in Black II showed clear evidence of his growth, III doesn’t really in any way show him as that sort of agent.

Which actually leads me nicely into my next complaint. There’s a throwaway mention that J might encounter some racism in 1969, and then that happens exactly once. Now, when it does happen, it is admittedly one of the best and most hilarious scenes in the film by far, but it literally never comes up again. I realize they don’t want the film to be “about” this, especially with it being as lighthearted as it is, but it easily could’ve been part of the background noise. At the very least, there should either have been some overt racism at 1960s MIB Headquarters other than the easily missable fact that there were only white employees (there was overt sexism), or an explanation for the lack of racism.

These complaints might sound like nitpicky things, and you might justifiably accuse me of expecting too much from an action comedy. (Though, good luck convincing me of that, because it’s basically my favorite genre. Especially when you throw in scifi.) The thing is, the first Men in Black was perfect. All the film and narrative elements (plot, pacing, dialogue, character development) were excellent, it was laugh-out-loud funny at times, emotionally deep at others. And it introduced us to what could have been an unbelievably good franchise, which hasn’t quite cashed in on its potential yet. Again: what they’ve done here isn’t bad. It’s actually quite good. But it isn’t as good as it could be.

My last, and least nitpicky complaint: this film was almost entirely about humans. Any scenes with incidental alien characters felt fairly lazy, like the writers couldn’t wait to get back to the human characters. A symptom of this problem is that MIB headquarters has been getting progressively less interesting in the sequels. There are fewer aliens, more humans, and definitely less “going on.”

Don’t get me wrong: I’m glad this film explored these two characters in greater depth, and explained their relationship. But can we please get back to them (and their world) being awesome? The best part about the first film was the way it gave you the impression that there was this huge, interesting, quirky world beyond everything you saw in the film. What you saw was brilliant, but there was this feeling of unlimited potential. It’s something the franchise hasn’t managed to recapture, but hopefully they’ll have another go of it. I haven’t gotten tired of it yet.

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