Columbia Pictures has released its first trailer for Men in Black 3, choosing to forego the traditional teaser, and jump right into a full-length spot instead.
Obviously, I’m not the only one who has been looking forward to more Men in Black. It’s been 15 years since the original, and IMHO, is still one of the best science fiction comedies out there.
Although not as classic as the first film, the sequel was practically just as good. Now, it’s been a decade since the second movie was produced, and the leaps and bounds the industry has made in terms of special effects are sure to have a huge impact on the long-awaited film.
It seems J is going to have to save K again, this time with time travel, which is mostly cool with me. Frankly, I like time travel stories just as much as the next geek, but it seems somewhat “devicey” in a way.
Also, introducing the concept of time travel into a franchise which didn’t have it before is somewhat risky and almost always prompts savvy audience members to ask: “If you have a time-machine, why don’t you always fix everything with it?”
The ability to travel through time is an extremely powerful one, and leads to more plot holes than any other science fiction device. Just think of Harry Potter: for all of its fantasy and strange plot-holes, the biggest plot hole of the entire series is the simple fact that the characters have access to a time-machine, and they never use it to fix any of the terrible things that happen to them.
Most stories adopt some kind of policy about time travel, and how making changes in the past is a bad idea, and Men in Black will likely be no exception. They’ll come up with some hare-brained explanation of why it’s okay “just this once” – probably that the bad guys changed it first and the good guys are only changing it back – but it still raises lots of questions and plot-holes.
It’s a science fiction comedy, however, so we’ll all have to try not to take it too seriously.
The trailer arrives with this synopsis:
In Men in Black 3, Agents J (Will Smith) and K (Tommy Lee Jones) are back… in time. J has seen some inexplicable things in his 15 years with the Men in Black, but nothing, not even aliens, perplexes him as much as his wry, reticent partner. But when K’s life and the fate of the planet are put at stake, Agent J will have to travel back in time to put things right. J discovers that there are secrets to the universe that K never told him – secrets that will reveal themselves as he teams up with the young Agent K (Josh Brolin) to save his partner, the agency, and the future of humankind.
I think it’s going to be strange hearing Tommy Lee Jones’ voice coming out of Josh Brolin’s face, but maybe only for the first few minutes. By the time the film comes out, perhaps I’ll have seen the trailer enough times that I’ll be used to it already.
Men in Black 3 hits theaters May 25 , 2012.
