Men in Black (1997)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 1997
	Director: Barry Sonnenfeld (The Addams Family, MiB 2-3)
	Actors: Tommy Lee Jones (JFK, The Fugitive), Will Smith (Independance Day, After Earth), Linda Fiorentino
	Country: USA
	Genre: SF, Comedy
	Conditions of visioning: 02.03.2017, VOD, 32" TV screen.
Synopsis: Old-timer agent K (Jones) recruits young NYPD officer J (Smith) in his organization monitoring Alien activity on Earth and known as the Men in Black.
Review: Men in Black was a huge hit 20 years ago (already...) thanks to a combination of Comedy and Science Fiction as never seen in Cinema at that time (to my memory). The cool story and the visuals, both adapted from a Marvel comic book, also help in that direction as well as the experience of Barry Sonnenfeld in family entertainment, the fun soundtrack by Danny Elfman and the use of rising star Will Smith (fresh out of Independence Day) in contrast to well-known serious-looking Tommy Lee Jones. The gags have aged a little and nothing of the story can be taken seriously but everything is self-consistent and well put together. And for me the movie came out when I was at an age of absorbing all the cinema I could especially in Action, Horror, SF and Fantasy, so some scenes are forever engraved in my mind: the Edgar suit (first time I saw Vincent d'Onofrio, nice to appreciate his performance now that I loved him in Daredevil), Orion's belt, the little red button, the tabloid magazines, the noisy cricket, Frank the dog, and of the course the final confrontation with the Alien bug. I found the 2002 sequel MiB2 with Rosario Dawson less well done, but for some reason I enjoyed much more the last MiB3 shot 10 years later with Josh Brolin as a young agent K who smiles like that :-|
Rating: 8 /10