Men in Black (1997)
This post is part of my ongoing project to watch my science fiction blindspots. You can find my list of upcoming movies for this project here.
Tommy Lee Jones is a national treasure.
I was just a hair too young—and too much of an easy scare—to see this when it first appeared in theaters. I never caught up with it because I assumed it was loud and gross and, if I’m being honest, kind of boring, probably because of the suits. It’s a relief to know that my perception about how interesting the movie is was wrong: Men in Black was delightfully weird. (I was dead-on about the loudness and the grossness; I have an almost visceral reaction to practical goop effects on screen.) I appreciated the set design: a neon-colored 90s take on 50s kitsch, complete with what must have been ILM’s prototypes for the CGI aliens that populated The Phantom Menace a few years later. I’m glad the movie didn’t rely fully on CGI, either. The practical effects, especially the buckets of goop, helped sell this world to me. I appreciated Will Smith’s character as a fish-out-of-water entry point into the MIB agency. I had a hard time believing he’d be willing to drop everything and join an ultra-conformist group in the name of saving the world, but the purpose of this movie isn’t to ruminate on anyone’s motivations. It’s to drop a handful of interesting personalities into a bonkers universe and let them bounce off each other, and they do that here beautifully.
Which brings me back to Tommy Lee Jones. I appreciated that the gonzo nature of the MIB universe was underlined by not one, but two characters’ reactions to the world around them. Will Smith is an excellent everyman. Tommy Lee Jones’s veteran was what sold me on this universe, though: the deadpan humor, the way he takes the strangeness in stride without blinking, and especially the fact that his approach to his life and work is just a hair off-kilter. It made me believe the weirdness of the movie I was seeing, because I could believe that he’d seen even weirder shit earlier in his career. But the way he carries himself with a hint of reserve, knowing when to hesitate and when to take action, with the knowledge that someday he won’t be quick on the draw any more, really worked for me. There’s a depth of character I didn’t expect, and I found it all the more startling in contrast with the noise and the mess and the exuberance of it all.
