Men in Black 3 (stylized as MIB³ and also as MIIIB) is a 2012 American 3D science fiction comedy film starring Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones. The film was released on May 25, 2012, ten years after its predecessor Men in Black II and fifteen years after the release of the original Men in Black.^[6] It also stars Josh Brolin, Emma Thompson, Alice Eve and Jemaine Clement, with Barry Sonnenfeld returning as director, and Steven Spielberg returning as executive producer. The film is the third installment in the Men in Black film series which is based on the The Men in Black comic book series from Malibu / Marvel Comics by Lowell Cunningham. Principal photography began in New York City on November 16, 2010.

Plot[link]

The intergalactic criminal Boris the Animal (Jemaine Clement) is aided in escape by his girlfriend, Lily Poison (Nicole Scherzinger), from the LunarMax prison on Earth's moon. He is intent on going back in time and killing Agent K (Tommy Lee Jones), who on July 16, 1969, shot off his arm and captured him. After investigating a spaceship crash in New York City, and following a skirmish in a Chinese restaurant, Boris appears, and K and J give chase. Boris reveals to K, "you are already dead, you just don't know it yet," and then disappears in an explosion. K deduces that Boris has escaped, and K regrets not having killed him. He returns to his apartment, where all traces of him disappear. Agent J (Will Smith), however, still remembers K, though no one else at Men in Black headquarters does.

Agent O (Emma Thompson), the new Chief deduces from J's statements that a fracture has occurred in the space-time continuum. The two realize Boris must have time-jumped to 1969 and killed K, resulting in an imminent invasion of Earth by his race, the Boglodites, due to the absence of the protective ArcNet shield around Earth, installed by K in 1969. Aided by electronic-shop owner Jeffrey Price, son of Boris' fellow prisoner Obadiah Price, who created the time-travel device, J time-jumps off the Chrysler Building to reach time-travel velocity. With only 24 hours to stop Boris, J arrives a day before Boris kills K.

J follows a clue to Coney Island, where 29-year-old junior agent K (Josh Brolin) arrests him and then questions him at MIB headquarters, while a young Agent O (Alice Eve) and Chief X come by. Getting no answers, K decides to place J in a large, primitive Neuralyzer. At the last second, J says he'll tell the truth of his mission and that he is from the future. As a team, they follow Boris' trail to a bowling alley and then to The Factory, the studio / party space of Andy Warhol's (Bill Hader), who is actually the undercover Agent W. The Agents meet the alien Griffin (Michael Stuhlbarg), an Arcadian who possesses the ArcNet and is able to see all possible futures. Griffin leaves before Boris arrives to snatch him. The Agents locate Griffin at Shea Stadium, where he gives them the ArcNet and instructs them to place it onto the Apollo 11 lunar rocket launch occurring in less than six hours. Boris then snatches Griffin, but the agents, on monocycles, give chase and recover Griffin.

Upon arriving at Cape Canaveral, the agents and Griffin are arrested by military police. A Colonel (Mike Colter), however, allows the agents to carry on their mission after Griffin uses his precognitive power to show him what J and K will accomplish. J uses the time-jump device to confuse Boris, and pushes him off the pad. K, battling the younger Boris, ruptures a hose, causing it to spray liquid nitrogen on Boris' left arm, shattering it. K plants the ArcNet on the rocket, and the protective shield deploys after reaching Earth's atmosphere, the launch sequence destroying the present Boris. The Colonel congratulates K, who invites him to join the agency.

As J watches from the distance, however, 1969 Boris emerges from the blast chamber and kills the Colonel, only to be killed by K. A child named James exits a military vehicle looking for his father. He pulls out a pocket watch, revealed earlier to have been passed down to Agent J by his father, and J realizes that the colonel killed by Boris was actually his father. K neuralyzes young James, telling him his father was a hero.

J returns to the present day, where he meets his partner at the usual diner. There, he shows K his father's pocket watch. The senior agent, in return, tells him it was an honor to have met him that fateful day. As they leave the diner, Griffin, a few seats away, muses all is well with the world, except for the fact that K forgot to leave a tip, indicating they are in a timeline where the Earth is about to be hit by an asteroid. Then, K returns to the diner and leaves a tip, revealing this timeline to be one where the asteroid disintegrates when hitting a satellite, and the film ends.

Cast[link]

• Will Smith as Agent J, a senior MIB agent^[7]
• Tommy Lee Jones as Agent K, a senior MIB agent^[7]
• Josh Brolin as Young Agent K
• Jemaine Clement as Boris the Animal^[8]
• Emma Thompson as Agent O, the head of MIB in present day^[9][10]
• Alice Eve as Young Agent O
• Michael Stuhlbarg as Griffin, an alien with precognitive powers^[11]
• Nicole Scherzinger as Lily, Boris' girlfriend^[12]
• David Rasche as Agent X, the head of MIB in 1969^[13]
• Will Arnett as Agent AA, Agent J's partner after K's "death"
• Lanny Flaherty as Obadiah Price
• Bill Hader as Andy Warhol / Agent W
• Michael Chernus as Jeffrey Price
• Mike Colter as Colonel James Darrell Edwards Jr.
• Cayen Martin as Young James Darrell Edwards III/Young Agent J

Production[link]

The film's premise was first proposed to director Barry Sonnenfeld by Will Smith during the filming of Men in Black II in 2002, with Smith suggesting that his character, Agent J, travel back in time to save his partner, Agent K, while at the same time exploring Agent K's backstory. Sonnenfeld said the idea "turned out to be a very long process of development, mainly because of the knotting [sic] issues of time travel...",^[14] The film was first announced on April 1, 2009, by Sony Pictures Entertainment president Rory Bruer during a Sony ShoWest presentation.^[15] By October 2009, Etan Cohen had been hired to write the screenplay.^[16] As of March 2010, Will Smith remained undecided whether to join this film or another, The City That Sailed.^[17] Sonnenfeld in May 2010 confirmed the return of the protagonists played by Tommy Lee Jones and Smith.^[7] Both had expressed interest in 2008 in reprising their roles.^[18][19] Other staff includes Walter F. Parkes and Laurie MacDonald as producers, with Steven Spielberg as executive producer; all were producers of the two previous films.^[20]

In June, writer David Koepp was hired to rewrite the Cohen script.^[21] On June 11, 2010, the fan site SonyInsider.com posted what it described as a "clip [that] debuted at an exclusive Sony 3D TV launch event at Sony Pictures Studios",^[22] showing Smith dressed as Agent J wearing 3-D glasses and stating, "I know what you're thinking — 'M.I.B.', 3-D, we're going to be blowing stuff up and all that. But that's not really what we're doing right now. We're here for one purpose, and for one purpose only: Just to let you know that I'm about to make 3-D look good."^[23] A teaser poster for the film was also released on September 21, 2010.^[24] A third writer, Jeff Nathanson, was hired in November 2010 to rewrite the time-travel segment of the script in which the story takes place in 1969.^[25] Nathanson and Koepp, along with producer Spielberg, had previously worked together on the 2008 film Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

As of October 2010, Sharlto Copley, Alec Baldwin, and Gemma Arterton were in negotiations to appear in the film.^[26]

Principal photography began on November 16, 2010,^[27] even though, "We knew starting the movie that we didn't have a finished second or third act," director Sonnenfeld said in 2012. "Was it responsible? The answer is, if this movie does as well as I think it will, it was genius. If it's a total failure, then it was a really stupid idea."^[28] It was originally slated to commence on October 18, 2010, and continue until May 2011 in New York City,^[29] with shooting starting in 2010 partly in order to take advantage of a New York tax break in which the state rebates 30 percent of production costs incurred there.^[30] Filming was split into two parts, the first taking place from November until about Christmas 2010; the filmmakers announced shooting would begin again in mid-February, but it was delayed until April.^[30] Unlike the first two films, Men in Black 3 was filmed in 3D.^[31]

Set photos for the film appeared online November 17, 2010, showing Smith, Jones, Emma Thompson, and Nicole Scherzinger on set.^[32] Shooting was scheduled to resume from March through June 2011.^[33] Filming was done in April 2011 in the Morris Park section of The Bronx.^[34] Parts of Coney Island, in Brooklyn, had parking and filming permits posted for April 24 and May 2–4, 2011, production dates of what the permits titled MIB³.^[35] Shooting also took place in Manhattan's SoHo neighborhood.^[36]

For the film, the Ford Taurus SHO was selected as the MIB's official car, replacing the Ford LTD Crown Victoria and Mercedes-Benz E-Class from the first two films.^[37] For the 1969 scenes, a 1964 Ford Galaxie was used as the MIB's official car.

This is the first time Frank the Pug was absent in a Men in Black movie, most likely because fans were put off by his overuse in the second film. His picture is seen hung up in Will Smith's bedroom in Men in Black 3. Also, in a 1969 scene in which Smith gets pulled over by the police on his way to Coney Island, a billboard can be seen in the background advertising "The Incredible Talking Pug", a reference to Frank. This is also the first movie of the MIB series not to feature Chief Zed or Jack Jeebs.

Release[link]

Under distribution by Columbia Pictures, the film was released on May 25, 2012 release in theaters.^[38] The film is rated PG-13 by MPAA for "sci-fi action violence and brief suggestive content".^[39] The film is rated PG by the BBFC for "mild language, innuendo and fantasy violence".^[2] The film is rated M by Australian Classification Board for "science fiction violence".^[40]

Marketing[link]

Video game[link]

Activision has announced that they are developing a video game based on the film by the name of MIB: Alien Crisis. It will, however, feature a never before seen MIB agent instead of Agent J or Agent K. The game is due for release on May 22, 2012 for Xbox 360, Playstation 3 and Nintendo Wii.^{[41][42][dated info]}

Gameloft is also developing a mobile phone video game based on the film; it is set for release May 17, 2012, for iOS and Android.^{[43][dated info]}

Music[link]

"Back in Time" by rapper Pitbull was released as the first single from the soundtrack on March 26, 2012.^[44] It is the first lead single for a Men in Black soundtrack not performed by Will Smith.

Reception[link]

The film received generally positive reviews from critics, especially in comparison to the second film. The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reports a 69% approval rating with an average rating of 6/10, based on an aggregation of 190 reviews. The consensus states: "It isn't exactly a persuasive argument for the continuation of the franchise — but Men in Black III is better than its predecessor and manages to exceed expectations, largely due to Josh Brolin's impressive performance ."^[45] It has a score of 58 on Metacritic based on 38 reviews, indicating "mixed or average reviews".^[46]

Roger Ebert gave the film 3 out of 4 stars, in particular praising Josh Brolin's role as the young Agent K, which he cites as an excellent example of good casting. Ebert also praises the "ingenious plot, bizarre monsters, audacious cliff-hanging" and the "virtuoso final sequence". ^[47] Allen O'Brien of The Times of India gave the film 4 stars out of 5, and concluding, "Sadly, it's the 3D that does not really spruce up the drama, but once you know you are in for some real MIB-isms, you don't really care."^[48]

Box office[link]

On its opening midnight, MIB 3 earned $1.55 million from 2,233 locations.^[49] On its opening day, the film debuted at the top of the box office and grossed $17.7 million, which was slightly lower than the opening day grosses of the original film and Men in Black II, $18.9 million and $18 million respectively.^[50] During its opening weekend, it held onto the #1 and made $54.6 million, which was higher than the opening weekends of the two previous films.^[51] The movie then earned an additional $14.7 million on Memorial Day,^[52] bringing its four day weekend total to $69.3 million.^[53] As of May 31, 2012, the film has grossed $83,003,553 in the United States and Canada, along with $133,200,000 in other countries, for a worldwide total of $216,203,553.^[5]

Potential sequel[link]

Both Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones have said that they would "consider" appearing in a Men in Black 4.^[54] Director Barry Sonnenfeld joked, "...for Men in Black 4, Will is out and [his son] Jaden Smith is in." Jones said it would be "easy to pick up where we left off. We know what we are doing, we know how to do it. It's just a hell of a lot of fun."^[55]

References[link]

^[56]

This is also the first M.I.B film to not feature Tony Shaloub as Jack Jeebs, this role is basically filled by Michael Chernus as Jeffrey Price. Also the charactor of Newton does not appear.

External links[link]

Film portal

• Official website
• Men in Black III at the Internet Movie Database
• Men in Black III at AllRovi
• Men in Black 3 at Box Office Mojo
• Men in Black 3 at Rotten Tomatoes
• Men in Black 3 at Metacritic
• Men in Black III on Movies2Watch.co.uk

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Men in Black (MIB), in American popular culture and in UFO conspiracy theories, are men dressed in black suits who claim to be government agents who harass or threaten UFO witnesses to keep them quiet about what they have seen. It is sometimes implied that they may be aliens themselves. The term is also frequently used to describe mysterious men working for unknown organizations, as well as to various branches of government allegedly designed to protect secrets or perform other strange activities. The term is generic, used for any unusual, threatening or strangely behaved individual whose appearance on the scene can be linked in some fashion with a UFO sighting.^[1]

Behavior[link]

According to the accounts of those reporting encountering them, Men in Black always seem to have detailed information on the persons they contact, as if the individual had been under surveillance for a long period of time. They have been described as seeming confused by the nature of everyday items such as pens, eating utensils or food, as well as using outdated slang, though accounts on the behavior of Men in Black vary widely. Accounts indicate that they often claim to be from an agency collecting information on the unexplained phenomenon their subject has encountered. In other accounts, they seem to be trying to suppress information by, for instance, trying to convince their subject the phenomenon never existed. They have been described as behaving in either an exceedingly furtive manner or a completely outgoing one, with wide grins and disconcerting giggles.^[2] This behavior suggests that the "gigglers" were pranksters, or perhaps people just having a joke around. Conspiracies about groups of people, like MiB here, are often preyed upon to use as pranks, just like sometimes people impersonate others for either scandal or enjoyment.

Possible explanations[link]

Folkloric explanations[link]

Although the phenomenon was initially and most frequently reported in the 1950s and 1960s, some researchers—John Keel and others—have suggested similarities between Men in Black reports and earlier demonic accounts. Keel suggests that MiBs are a modern-day manifestation of the same phenomena that were earlier interpreted as the devil or encounters with fairies. Similarly, folklorist Peter Rojcewicz^[3] noted that many Men in Black accounts parallel tales of people encountering the devil: Neither Men in Black nor the devil are quite human, and witnesses often discover this fact midway through an encounter. The meaning of this parallel, however, has been the subject of debate. Even so, the term "the black man" was used for centuries in reference to the Devil,^{[citation needed]} up until contemporary times when "black man" was used to replace the term "Negro" and the satanic sense was lost. A telling example may be found in an 1837 report in The Morning Chronicle. A certain John Henning, charged with running away with a chest of tea, defended himself with the claim that "he was ordered to carry it by a gentleman in black" who told him to carry it to Petticoat-lane.

"The LORD MAYOR: Pray what sort of gentleman was he? - Prisoner: I can't just tell, please you, my lord; I only know he was in black. The LORD MAYOR: I am afraid it was the gentleman in black that directed you in this matter. Had he a tail? - Prisoner: A tail! A pig-tail, do you mean, please you, my lord? No, I can't say as he had. The LORD MAYOR: Did you look at his feet? What sort were they? - like a cow's [a laugh]?"^[4]

In witchcraft trials "The Black Man" was often reported as meeting with the accused and having sexual intercourse with them. In Washington Irving's story "The Devil and Tom Walker" set in 1727, Irving tells how Tom asks "the black man" who he is. The man says he goes by many names and is called the black miner sometimes or the black woodsman. He says that since the Indians are gone, he presides over the persecutions of various religious sects, supports slave-dealers and is the master of the Salem witches. Tom replies that he must be "Old Scratch", which is another name for the devil, and the black man acknowledges that he is Old Scratch. In 1932, H. P. Lovecraft also used the figure of The Black Man in his tale "The Dreams in the Witch-House" as a synonym for the Devil, but he also uses the term and description for Nyarlathotep, a malevolent entity of his own creation. In the Middle Ages The Black Man was not a man with African features, but rather a man colored black and dressed in black.

Military/CIA explanations[link]

More prosaically, Clark cites Bill Moore, who asserts that "the Men in Black are really government agents in disguise ... members of a rather bizarre unit of Air Force Intelligence known currently as the Air Force Special Activities Center (AFSAC) ... As of 1991, the AFSAC, headquartered in Fort Belvoir, Virginia," and "under the operational authority of Air Force Intelligence Command centered at Kelly Air Force Base in Texas." (Clark, 321–22) Curiously, Moore also reports that AFSAC was inspired by the tales of Men in Black from the 1950s, and had nothing to do with those early accounts. Similarly, Clark notes that Dr. Michael D. Swords has speculated that the Barker/Bender Men in Black case (occurring shortly after the CIA-directed Robertson Panel issued its recommendations to spy on civilian UFO groups) might have been a psychological warfare experiment.

Hoax explanation[link]

In his article, "Gray Barker: My Friend, the Myth-Maker," John C. Sherwood claims that at age 18, he cooperated when Gray Barker urged him in the late 1960s to develop a hoax — which Barker subsequently published — about what Barker called "blackmen", three mysterious UFO inhabitants who silenced Sherwood's pseudonymous identity, "Dr. Richard H. Pratt".^[5]

In popular culture[link]

Men in Black (1997), starring Tommy Lee Jones and Will Smith as Agent K and Agent J, was based on Lowell Cunningham's comic book about a secret organization that monitors and suppresses paranormal activity on Earth - The Men in Black from Aircel Comics. The film was followed by Men in Black: The Series and its 2002 sequel Men in Black II. Men in Black 3 was released on May 25th, 2012. Scott Mitchell Rosenberg, who published the comic book, took the property to Sony to become a billion-dollar film franchise.^[6] Will Smith made a song called "Men in Black" for the movie Men in Black in 1997, and "Black Suits Comin' (Nod Ya Head)" for its sequel in 2002.

The Adult Swim animated television series The Venture Bros. features two recurring characters, Agents John Doe and Card Holder, that exhibit most of the aforementioned stereotypical traits and behavior of Men in Black.

Between January 10 and March 27, 2012, a Japanese anime series by the title Ano Natsu de Matteru (あの夏で待ってる) "Waiting in the Summer" aired in which an extraterrestrial girl landed on earth and quickly entered into a romantic love story with a Japanese boy. In the series, the protagonists make a film featuring "Men in Black" much in the fashion of the 1997 film, and at the very end one of the protagonists is revealed to be the director of the Japanese MIB branch office which, again, looks just like the MIB office in the 1997 and 2002 films.

The Silence from Doctor Who may also be the Men in Black. They wear black suits and ties, and those who have had an encounter have no memory of the encounter until they see the Silence again. These are both characteristics of the Men in Black.

In Deus Ex, JC Denton encounters multiple Men and Women in Black throughout the story. They are strong, lethal enemies that have extremely pale and gray skin, as well as echoed voices and an eye tattooed on the back of their neck. They are not completely robotic as they bleed when attacked and when they explode upon death.

See also[link]

Notes[link]

This article uses bare URLs for citations. Please consider adding full citations so that the article remains verifiable. Several templates and the Reflinks tool are available to assist in formatting. (Reflinks documentation) (November 2011)

References[link]

External links[link]

• Men in Black/MIB's at maar.us
• Men In Black Are Aliens

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