Barry Sonnenfeld
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The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent (2022)
Directed by Tom Gormican
influenced by Get Shorty (1995)
As The Unbearable Weight Of Massive Talent sprinkles in winking references to its own structure and twists, I couldn’t help but internally compare it to the excellence of Barry Sonnenfeld’s Get Shorty and Martin McDonagh’s Seven Psychopaths and come away underwhelmed.
It’s all basically a setup for a movie within a movie (such as in “Last Action Hero” or “Get Shorty,” with the flavor of accidental impersonations like in “North by Northwest”), boasting a delightfully self-aware styling (the script tends to evolve as the characters mull over how their actions might be more engaging in a movie setting) that features countless references to Cage’s past performances.
Second, while the film falls short of the first “Men in Black” – if only because it lacks that film’s sense of discovery – the time travel story (written by Etan Cohen) reinvigorates the series with a fresh sense of fun that’s reminiscent of 1985’s “Back to the Future.”
The very casual changing-the-future-by-changing-the-past narrative evokes Back to the Future (1985); this time suggesting Robert Zemeckis is the director whom Sonnenfeld is taking his cues from.
Introducing time travel to a series that has never raised that possibility sounds like a desperate ploy, drafting off Back to the Future much like young Marty McFly drafted off cars on his skateboard.
Borrowing heavily from “Back to the Future,’’ the new film finesses the second one’s biggest problem — Tommy Lee Jones’ very weary-looking Agent K — by sending Smith’s Agent J back in time to 1969, where he meets a 29-year-old version of Agent K (played, in an uncanny impersonation, by Josh Brolin).
It copies off Back to the Future 's paper by injecting daddy issues, sad-but-reversible deaths and a time travel method (plunging off the tops of buildings and pressing a button when you almost hit the ground) every bit as plausible as DeLorean gunning.
To inject some energy into a franchise that ran out of gas a decade ago, dribbling whatever it had left onto the asphalt of asinine ancillary-reaping mega fare in the woebegone Men in Black 2 (2002) , Men in Black 3 — the sequel nobody asked for, wanted or expected — arrives as an unofficial Back to the Future hybrid.
Travolta, who has been working up a movie idea of his own, and has a near-encyclopedic recall of great movies (from Orson Welles's "Touch of Evil" to "Rio Lobo"), smells a great opportunity.
It pays homage to scrappy "B" movies, Orson Welles' great noir Touch of Evil, and the films of Howard Hawks (Rio Bravo), who no doubt would have been the first one to enjoy Get Shorty.
At one point, he takes in a screening of Orson Welles's "Touch of Evil," and the boyish delight he gets from its climax suddenly makes him look 20 years younger.
Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997)
Directed by Jay Roach
influenced Men in Black 3 (2012)
Plot Themes
In some inspired casting, Josh Brolin plays a young K and delivers the best impersonation of an actor playing a younger version of a character he's already established since Rob Lowe absolutely nailed Robert Wagner in the "Austin Powers" movies.
Humor focused on the late-'60s time period has an "Austin Powers" familiarity, not unlike the recent Tim Burton release "Dark Shadows."
Boris decides to travel back in time to kill K before that happened and before you can say, "Austin Powers", Agent J (Will Smith) travels after him back to the 1960s.
Haven’t we already seen all the fish-out-of water 60s culture jokes in the “Austin Powers” movies already?
Sonnenfeld's film is just good enough to remind us how lazy most blockbusters have become in the decade since Gremlins and Ghostbusters - hits with a similar hip, relaxed vibe.
At times the ambience evokes the work of Gremlins director Joe Dante; don't expect any psychological depth here, but the cool wit and fun (derived partly from the premise that the cheap tabloids are the only newspapers telling the truth) are deftly maintained, and Sonnenfeld provides a bountiful supply of both fanciful beasties and ingenious visuals.
The original "Ghostbusters" and "Men in Black" walked this line beautifully and were alternately hilarious and thrilling films.
It might have been possible to pass off The Watch as a rip-off of Men in Black if two forgettable sequels hadn't claimed that distinction.
All of it seems predictable, because it's all been done before and better whether it's in any of the "Men in Black" movies or "Attack the Block" or "Hot Fuzz," leaving one scratching their head how so many genuinely funny people couldn't figure out how to make this one work.
Real-life horrors aside, “The Watch” feels like what might have happened if Hill, instead of crafting the much-funnier “21 Jump Street” (which likewise incorporated N.W.A's “Straight Outta Compton”) had transposed a story of wannabe cops onto “Men in Black.”
…concept had payoff in Men in Black; here, it's so ridiculously easy to figure out who the aliens are that there's no inherent comedy in it.
R.I.P.D. (2013)
Directed by Robert Schwentke
influenced by Men in Black (1997)
Themes Characters Visuals
And as faintly amusing and reminiscent of Tommy Lee Jones’ “Men in Black” as turn this might be, there’s no way these two smart guys didn’t see this was piffle on the page.
Instead of getting Will Smith playing a rookie alien investigator and Tommy Lee Jones playing the crusty, cranky veteran with whom he is partnered in the "Men in Black" films, it's Ryan Reynolds paired with a crusty, cranky Jeff Bridges .
Wait, when did Jeff Bridges and Ryan Reynolds take over the Men in Black franchise from Tommy Lee Jones and Will Smith?
It’s not difficult to see why: for all the crash-bang-wallop effects (some of which look a lot less convincing than even Men In Black’s 1997-era visuals) and attempts at buddy comedy, Red director Robert Schwentke’s latest lacks a real spark, content to blithely tick boxes en route to the usual big finale like a zombie shuffling ever onwards.
…the True-Detective-meets-Training-Day-meets-Men-In-Black approach to the story here mostly works…
…the plot line is more Men in Black films than True Detective…
The lighter moments of “Lanterns” bring to mind the “Men in Black” franchise, another universe in which the presence of space aliens is an accepted fact and a pair of oddly matched agents try to track them down.
Quentin Tarantino was the great prophet of the form, but Ritchie, and others’ films such as Get Shorty and Sexy Beast, kept it going.
But The Gentlemen feels less like a Ritchie movie and more like a derivation of a Ritchie movie with a pinch of Quentin Tarantino and a dash of Get Shorty tossed in.
As Fletcher reads out his script, occasionally embellishing things or reiterating details, the movie begins to resemble “Get Shorty” (all while making generous nods to “The Long Good Friday”), particularly with the movie-within-a-movie notes (paired with many of Ritchie’s own, previous gangster film earmarks, awash with fighting, favors, blackmail, cool threats, funny quips, and hard-boiled endeavors).
Yet with the movie now having underperformed at the Box Office, even compared to Men in Black 3 (which a lot of people don’t even remember seeing despite it being one of the highest grossing movies of 2012), it seems that if trying to have a more forward-looking and less expensive approach it didn’t work out.
Then there are the ungoogleable nicknames: Will Smith’s J, Tommy Lee Jones’ K, and now, in Men in Black: International, Chris Hemsworth’s H and Tessa Thompson’s M. For some Men in Black, though, the agency’s erasure of its employees’ personal identities eventually becomes a bridge too far.
The feeling of disconnect — of characters who say they’re in conflict, but don’t have many real conflicts, of tonally diverse elements patched together into a loose quilt, of characters that don’t cohere and are just around to snipe in jokes — extends throughout every aspect of Men In Black: International, but it’s most prominent in the editing, which often feels as though entire scenes are missing, as if F. Gary Gray (Straight Outta Compton, The Fate of the Furious) hoped no one would notice as long as things moved fast enough.
Men in Black: International is the first installment of the franchise to not feature its two core cast members -- Smith and Jones -- or its original director, Barry Sonnenfeld .
It pays homage to scrappy "B" movies, Orson Welles' great noir Touch of Evil, and the films of Howard Hawks (Rio Bravo), who no doubt would have been the first one to enjoy Get Shorty.
Artemis Fowl (2020)
Directed by Kenneth Branagh
influenced by Men in Black (1997)
Visuals Plot Themes
In their matching black suits, shooting lasers at fairies, Artemis and his body guard look like a little league version of Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones in Men in Black.
There's also a dash of Men in Black in the black suits and sunglasses, and the fairy weapons.
The fairies — who, we’re shown, keep the world safe from bad magical creatures, then flashy-thing the humans’ memories, a la “Men in Black” — soon are in a standoff with Artie and Domovoi, after Artie has taken Holly as a prisoner.
Mixing aspects of "Harry Potter," "Lord of the Rings" and "Men in Black" but coming off more like "Agent Cody Banks" with fairies, "Artemis Fowl" is a slick-looking but unruly disaster, a potential franchise that shows up dead on arrival.
This is not as it may sound an incitement to a rave, but indicative of the tale’s fairy-punk esthetic, best described as Harry Potter meets Men in Black .
He’s great because we say he is, and also, he wears a suit for some reason, totally unrelated to Men in Black , of course.
Taking the approximate place of Smith and Jones are Chris Hemsworth as Agent H and Tessa Thompson as new recruit Agent M. Hemsworth's character is a showboating veteran resting on his laurels in the London office and Thompson's is a woman who had a childhood encounter with the Men in Black, evaded their mind-wiping neuralyzers, and is now H's new partner.
The rest of the film's targets are more in line with expectations, with "Star Wars," "Men in Black," "Aliens," "Back to the Future," "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," and "Mac and Me" all cited at one time or another.
Pegg and Frost don't give themselves material comparable to their previous work, and most of the movie references- I counted "Star Wars," "E.T.," "Men in Black," "The X-Files," "Close Encounters" and even friggin' "Mac and Me"- aren't nearly as clever as the movie thinks they are.
An odd amalgamation of E.T., Close Encounters and Men in Black gets spoofed here, all within the superstructure of a fish-outta-water buddy road picture.
Early in their journey, they encounter a real-life alien (a CGI effect voiced by Seth Rogen) who is on the run from a glowering, deadpan Men In Black-style operative (Jason Bateman) and a pair of bungling FBI agents (Bill Hader and Joe Lo Truglio).
We can pick up the nods to Men in Black and Close Encounters, and appreciate the shrewd idea that Paul resembles E.T. because that’s what humans are conditioned to expect after all those movies, but nodding to something doesn’t automatically make it comic.
The rest of this road picture, directed by Greg Mottola of “Adventureland,” is about this trio trying to smuggle Paul awayl from the “Men in Black” he’s escaped from.
That’s what keeps it from being in the same class as “Beetlejuice” or “The Frighteners.”
He has cribbed from Tim Burton (the Beetlejuicey score is by Danny Elfman, the striking sets by Bo Welch), but he has also learned what not to do: The script (based on a comic by Lowell Cunningham) is elegantly shaped, without an extraneous beat, and there's a generosity toward even the most degenerate beasties from beyond.
Odd Thomas (2013)
Directed by Stephen Sommers
influenced by Men in Black (1997)
Plot Characters Themes
The premise of “Odd Thomas” recalls the one King used in “The Dead Zone,” though here it’s told in the lighthearted style of “Men in Black” or “R.I.P.D.” The title character, played by Anton Yelchin, is a young guy employed as a short-order cook in a modestly-sized desert town called Pico Mundo.
The aforementioned villain “Fungus” Bob acts a lot like he’s the brother of Vincent D’Onofrio‘s Edgar-suit-wearing bug creature from Men in Black, but the rest stay steeped in reality—or at least the off-kilter reality—necessary to buy this being our world.
It tries to nestle itself into that Men in Black-ish zone, where otherworldly entities are viewed somewhat humorously, even when threatening the fate of the universe.
Do you believe that Nine Lives is a real movie, and not a Funny or Die parody of '90s talking animal movies like Paulie (1998) and Joe's Apartment (1996)?
The storyline is the least engaging aspect of the film, but it still works, thanks to a fun vibe which resembles that of another big screen update of an old television series about a spooky dysfunctional clan: 1991’s “The Addams Family.”
Barry Sonnenfeld may have hit the proverbial coffin nail on the family’s head with The Addams Family movie, but there are too many moments in this incarnation of Dark Shadows (especially at the end of the film) where all of the characters seem to be sitting around waiting for everyone else to do something while the audience is waiting for ANYTHING to happen.
Do you believe that Nine Lives is a real movie, and not a Funny or Die parody of '90s talking animal movies like Paulie (1998) and Joe's Apartment (1996)?
Keegan-Michael Key from Key and Peel and Kathryn Hahn, who stars in Showtime’s Happyish, have a Men in Black-ish scene as a couple of space-oddity souvenir-shop owners.
Despite all this hokum, and scenes of mayhem between humans and androids straight out of Men in Black, the spunky duo of Casey and Athena become irresistible.
For much of its running time, Tomorrowland plays as a lighthearted techno-conspiracy thriller, Men in Black by way of Nancy Drew with the occasional whiff of Philip K. Dick paranoia and Pixarian high concept.