After three kids animated CGI movies in a row I finally movie on to a movie without any cartoon-esk CGI animations with this 1997 released movie. I was very disappointed after going to the cinema to watch a recorded Stranglers concert I was shocked when a Sci-Fi movie broke out. [note - starts review with a joke only for the ‘The Stranglers’ fans out there].
Starring Tommy Lee Jones, Will Smith, Linda Fiorentino, Vincent D'Onofrio and Rip Torn with the music of Danny Elfman. Directed by Barry Sonnenfeld this movie was so successful they were asked back to do a sequel and then a further sequel thereafter. It also spawned a TV series (animated) and a spin off movie called international released last year. This was well received by critics like IMDb giving this one a 7.3 out of 10 & Rotten Tomatoes given it a 92% as well. It was produced on a budget of $90m its success is shown in the box-office return of $589.4m which speaks for itself.
The plot is based around the Will Smith character of James Darrell Edwards III who is a police officer who chases a suspect who seems to be unusually agile and extremely fast but being a talented cop he remains in pursuit of the suspect. This ability impresses one of the men in black. K who suggests that he is invited to the next recruitment drive where the best of the military graduates compete with each other and this random cop for the job they know nothing about. James passes and joins the ‘Men In Black’ all identification of him is removed included national insurance and finger prints his name is removed from all records and he will be renamed ‘J’. He joins them and becomes a member of a secret undercover organisation. An organisation that began after aliens landed back in the sixties was set up to monitor and support aliens from other planets that travel here and then disguise themselves within human world to holiday or move and live here. The organisation is the secret police for them they are also the support for them and the link to other worlds. J’s first case is a bug that has landed in a farm that kills the owner taking over
his body to be able to mingle within the human world. His goal is to take a galaxy off of an alien living in New York so he/it seeks the alien out. The other alien is a senior member of the Arquillian race and the bug tries to force him to hand over the galaxy killing the Arquillian in the process. The MiB are worried what the Arquillians will do about the death which happened on earth. They arrive giving a time limit for the earth to be destroyed if the MiB don’t hand over the galaxy. With the clock ticking the new and experienced agents now have a limited time to catch the bug and/or find and return the galaxy before the world comes to an end.
Pretty much every movie from here on is a movie I would recommend watching so this should go without saying going forward. This is a very funny action movie with a heavy Sci-Fi lint. It sees a young Will Smith and an experience Tommy Lee-Wallace as a clash of characters with Tommy’s K seeing the diamond in the rough of the cocky and brash J character. Ignoring advise leads J into issues that you come to realise that K’s laid back approach to what appears to be major problems that are in fact just run of the mill to him makes it fun to watch and brings you into the movie. It is warm and entertaining and the fun builds to an exciting conclusion with a race against time to save the earth from being blown to bits by an upset alien race over a missing charm containing an extremely powerful galaxy. This is a well paced movie with jokes throughout and a serious story pushing along side of it. My family love this movie and my son in particular so it has to great and high on my list then doesn’t it.
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