The Task: Watch and write about every movie on my shelf, in order (Blu-rays are sorted after DVDs), by June 10, 2015. Remaining movies: 198 Days to go: 203
Movie #179: Men in Black
Funny story: This movie was mis-alphabetized on my shelf because its spine says MIB, so now I’m going to be upset forever that my entire project is screwed up, like having a freakin’ bubble caught in your phone’s screen protector. Goddamn bubble. At least I don’t own the other two, or I’d have been super irked by this. I mean, more than I am already.
And now you know exactly how neurotic I am.
Men in Black was maybe the first movie that made me realized I didn’t mind alien sci-fi if it was funny and clever alien sci-fi. I am hugely anti-Independence Day, so Men in Black was the first movie of Will Smith’s (as Agent J) I could really get behind. And it’s such a great movie. Secret government agencies are not a new theme, and neither are aliens living among us or alien invaders threatening to destroy Earth, but Men in Black makes those well-worn paths seem new and fresh. The agency, their weird egg-shaped chairs, the firefight test where J shoots little Suzy with the Quantum Physics books, the various aliens and all the gadgets — especially the neuralizer — come together to make the film interesting and fun and different from anything done before.
Will Smith is great the whole way through, but the absolute best part is in his introductory scene when he’s chasing down the alien through the streets of New York. He’s sharp and witty and funny while also being a bit of a badass. The rest of the time, fumbling through a new world, he exhibits more of a goofiness mixed with his natural swagger, but the beginning is all confidence. It’s great.
As for MIB proper, Rip Torn (as Agent Zed) runs the agency with a gravelly voiced monotone that drips arrogance and authority. He’s a lot of fun. And nobody does cantankerous straight arrow like Tommy Lee Jones, though here he gets to use his niche to a decidedly comic effect and it works great.
Linda Fiorentino makes for a somewhat stilted and off medical examiner, I think, but that might be all the flashy things she’s gotten over the years. And no lie, Vincent D’Onofrio’s Edgar suit was the creepiest, grossest, scariest thing I’d ever seen up to that point. Blech.
Tony Shalhoub as Jeebs is another highlight, and his head getting blown off was one of my favorite surprises in the film. It’s even better when he regenerates and his eyes are crossed in new ways. All of the featured aliens, in fact, are clever and unique, each different and unusual in their own ways.
As much as I enjoy Men in Black, though, the thing that secures it deep within my heart it the final image. As J and L (Fiorentino) drive off through the city, the camera pulls back to an aerial view of the city, of the earth, of the solar system, of the galaxy, all fitting within a marble currently being played with by an alien in some other world, who places our galaxy marble into a bag full of other galaxy marbles. It’s a flight of fancy, and yet it’s not entirely implausible. Our world — our entire universe — could’ve been created inside the dense center of a black hole which exists in another, larger universe. This is actually a thing. And this flight of fancy speaks to that, to the incomprehensible vastness of the universe, to the unheard of possibilities that lie beyond the limits of our knowledge of space.
How freaking great is that to be touched on by a silly little popcorn movie? It’s seriously so great. The others are fine little follow-ups (and I do hold a special place in my heart for the third movie, even though I don’t own it, because it deals with time and changing history and alternate timelines), but the first is simply incomparable.
Viable Option 