‘A person is smart. People are dumb…’
What has happened to the blockbuster? Men in Black has a great cast, a prestigious director in Barry Sonnenfeld, Oscar winning special effects/makeup from industry legend Rick Baker, and a visual style and identity all of its own. Yes, it’s a comic book adaptation, but it is so much more distinct than equivalent films released today. This what they have taken from us…
Agent K (Tommy Lee Jones) recruits Agent J (Will Smith) to a shadowy organisation that helps to keep Earth safe from the threat of intergalactic warfare. The beauty of this plot is its simplicity. Sonnenfeld has just enough plot, combined with perfect pacing, to ensure that Men in Black remains a rip-roaring thrill ride throughout.
Aside from Sonnenfeld’s assured direction (although some of the CGI looks a little wonky now – particularly the final showdown in the conclusion), it is the wonderful chemistry shared between the two leads that ensures that Men in Black is a resonding success. The brash young upstart and the older, grizzled cynic is a cinematic combination we have seen many times before, but perhaps never in a way that is as effective as it is here. Smith was on the verge of becoming arguably the biggest actor in the world here and his brand of extreme confidence combined with boyish vulnerability is impossible to resist. Agent J could easily have been annoying, but Smith is charming enough and charismatic enough to ensure that this never happens (whether the same would have been true of David Schwimmer (who turned down the role) is very much up for debate).
Men in Black is one of the most purely entertaining and visually inventive blockbusters of the ’90s – an utter treat from start to finish.
