Men in Black 3 (2012)

Director: Barry Sonnenfeld

Cast: Will Smith, Tommy Lee Jones, Josh Brolin, Jermaine Clement

Have I Seen it Before: I have a strong, unwavering belief that this was the last movie I ever saw in a hotel room pay-per-view. And I mean that as it was the most recent time that happened, and also the final time. Honestly, kids. Ask your parents.

Did I Like It: What is the smallest possible rationale for a movie to be made? Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989) is what it is because Shatner had a favored-nations clause with Nimoy and thus, the crew of the Enterprise meets God. The Cat in the Hat (2003) was the minimum punishment Mike Myers was able to stomach after refusing to make a movie version of Sprockets. The less said about most adaptations of The Fantastic Four, the better.

Among all of those, the pitch “Josh Brolin can do a pretty good impression of Tommy Lee Jones” has got to be pretty thin. But Sonnenfeld and company make the best of it, for the most part. Trying to get Jones by telling him he maybe had to work for a week probably helped matters more than little.

I’m not entirely sure (pre 2022 Oscars, naturally) why Smith felt the need to come back, and could still around the same time turn his nose up at Independence Day: Resurgence (2016). A summer sci-fi extravaganza is just the same as any other. Maybe if Josh Brolin could do a young Robert Loggia impression…

Ultimately a third venture with Earth’s last line of defenses is about as good as the original and a fair sight better than the almost paint-by-numbers second film. I’m normally in favor of any series wanting to suddenly adopt time travel, but content to reach for the simplest of audiences, we’re not so much allowed to go along on the adventure with Agent J as having him occasionally mention aloud what is happening. It’s not my favorite thing to happen. But it’s all of a piece.

What We Do In The Shadows (2014)

Director: Jermaine Clement, Taika Waititi

Cast: Taika Waititi, Jermaine Clement, Jonathan Brugh, Cori Conzalez-Macuer

Have I Seen it Before: Oh, sure. I have yet to re-watch it since the sublime television show started. So many fans of the movie have completely dismissed the television show, that I worried re-visiting it wouldn’t hold the same charms.

Did I Like It: And it does hold the same charm—if not the surprising anarchy—of that original viewing. Clement and Waititi create a comedy that would pass—if it weren’t fictional, naturally—as a pretty good documentary in its own right. They create comic personas here that will serve them infinitely well in subsequent productions.

The plot is relatively similar to at least the set up for the movie, that there is a degree of repitition. To the television show’s credit, it took those seeds and began to form likely my favorite live-action comedy series currently on the air. So, there is, I hate to say, just a slightly smaller amount of enjoyment with the film this time around. It isn’t the film’s fault; it’s more a statement that the television series may have a chance at being the first adaptation of its kind to surpass its cinematic progenitor since M*A*S*H*.*

Does that mean you should avoid watching the movie in favor of the television series? No, of course not. I think comparing any film to Robert Altman’s M*A*S*H*** (1970) is probably a pretty sterling endorsement.

*One more asterisk there is, in fact, not a typo. I’m not sure I would die on the hill of the fact that the television M*A*S*H* is better than the film. Just more indelible in the cultural consciousness.

**The asterisks are all over the place in this review. But when I realized the word-count in my word processing app counts the titles as four words instead of one, I kind of couldn’t help myself. Whatever will I do when I eventually do, review that movie, instead of this one?