Boris the Animal

"It's Just Boris!"

- Boris whenever somebody calls him by his nickname

Boris, known alternatively by the epithet The Animal, is the main antagonist of the third film in the franchise, titled Men in Black III. Boris is an intergalactic criminal and the last known member of the Boglodite race. He also has an insect-like pet named the Weasel, who lives in his hollow right hand, serving as Boris' main source of spikes to kill. He was apprehended by Agent K at Cape Canaveral in Florida on July 16, 1969. Upon escaping from LunarMax Prison, Boris time-jumps back to 1969 to prevent Kay from shooting off his arm and establishing the Arc Net Shield so that his species will survive. Agent J similarly travels back to the 1960s to stop Boris from achieving this goal. While Jay and Kay's past self repair the timeline, Kay chooses to kill Boris this time instead of arresting him. Boris is also responsible for the death of Jay's father. Boris is portrayed by Jemaine Clement.

Background
Boris was a boglodite from the species' native planet of Boglodotia, twenty-light years away from Earth in space. During the 1960s, in order to establish their dominance on the planet and be able to consume the planet, the Boglodites sent Boris to Earth to eliminate a survivor of a previous planet they destroyed: Griffin the Arcanan. The last next dimensional being of the planet possessed the Arc-Net, a defensive shield that could protect Earth, thereby keeping the Boglodites at bay, and would lead to their extinction, as they would starve before they reached the next planet with life upon its surface. Boris's mission was to prevent the shield from being deployed, and he was to kill anyone who attempted to do so.

1969


On July 15th 1969, Boris killed Roman the Fabulist whilst searching for the Arc Net Shield at Coney Island, according to the MiB Archives. Later, at Cape Canaveral where Agent K placed the Arc Net Shield on the Apollo 11 rocket, Boris attempted to stop K from doing so, only to have his arm blown off and sent to prison. K regretted not killing him for many years following the incident. The establishment of this shield around Earth prevented the Boglodites, parasites that strip a planet of its resources, from entering thereby leading to their extinction. This only fortified Boris' grudge against Agent K. However, his pet, the Weasel, somehow evaded capture and remained hidden for the next 40 years.

Interregnum
Over the course of the next four decades, Boris was imprisioned after being arrested by K, where he would never get over his grudge, thinking about Kay's actions almost every moment within solitary confinement.

2012
After 43 years of imprisonment at the LunarMax Prison, Boris escapes from the facility with the aid of Lilly Poison, who has brought the Weasel over to free Boris. With the deed done, Boris resolves to kill K. After a close encounter with both K and J at the roof of a Chinese restaurant, Boris resolves to kill K instead by traveling back in time - time-jumping - to the year 1969 to stop K from forcing his race into extinction and destroying/shooting off his arm.



Altered 2012
In the altered timeline, Boris succeeded in killing K before he could deploy the Arc Net Shield with the help of his future self and fled the planet. Due to his alterations, the Boglodites succeeded in invading Earth in 2012 but J, due to being there as a kid when Boris changed the timeline, remembered the original timeline and traveled back to 1969 to stop him.

Altered 1969
In the altered timeline, the elder Boris and the Weasel travel back to this year with the aim of working together with their past selves to kill K and destroy the Arc Net to ensure their species' survival. The younger Boris manages to track down Griffin, the rightful possessor of the Arc Net Shield, but in a brief encounter with the young K and J, they manage to rescue Griffin and Boris escapes. However, both the young K and J need to install the Arc Net in the Apollo 11 at Cape Canaveral (with the help of an Army Colonel named Colonel James Darrell Edwards II, who later happens to be J's father) before it blasts off into space.

The two Boris' meet, with the younger one being skeptical of his counterpart's capabilities since he got defeated. However, they reach common ground and they along with their Weasels, then follow the agents to Cape Canaveral, where the elder Boris fights J while the younger Boris tries to stop the younger K from installing the Arc Net into the rocket. Just as the elder Boris attempts to kill the young K, he is distracted by J (calling him by his nickname), who is then pelted with spikes before pushing himself and the elder Boris off the launch tower. Eventually, J time-travels himself back to where he faces off the elder Boris, but only this time he dodges the spikes, much to the elder Boris' shock. This allows J to punch the elder Boris off the tower. Around the same time, the younger Boris faces off with Kay and grabs the device, declaring that he's better than his counterpart but Kay freezes his arm with liquid nitrogen from a fuel hose and shoots it off, something that Griffin told Jay would restore the timeline. Past Boris then falls from the launch tower.

Following the successful installment of the Arc Net Shield, the agents escape from the tower as Apollo 11 begins to lift off, and the elder Boris is incinerated by the engine exhaust from the Saturn 5 lift vehicle. As the younger K reunites with Colonel Edwards, the younger Boris arrives, having escaped the tower, and launches a spike on K, only for the Colonel to receive it himself, an act witnessed by a shocked J. Following the Colonel's death, the young K holds the younger Boris at gunpoint, as Boris, revealing his true form, attempts to goad K into arresting him. However, this time K chooses to kill Boris instead, altering the timeline.

With Boris dead and the Arc Net Shield in place, the Boglodite invasion is prevented and they starve to death. In the restored future, K shows no knowledge of Boris beyond the battle at the Apollo 11 launch site, saying the Boglodites have been extinct for forty years and confirming Boris' plans were thwarted.

Personality and Traits
Boris the Animal is an extremely ruthless, violent, cunning, selfish, cruel, hotheaded, short-tempered, temperamental, arrogant, and devilish psychopath: He has an extreme disregard for alien or human life; he kills anyone who gets in his way, or just for his own amusement, even if they help him (making him appear heartless and ungrateful). In addition, he is also intelligent, as after his defeat at the hands of Agent K, he learns from his mistakes. He is also failure-intolerant, as demonstrated when 1969 Boris angrily berates 2012 Boris for his failures after the latter explains to the former what will happen to him in the future.

Trivia

 * Before the film went into production, Boris was named Yaz. Yaz was also the name of the villain in early script drafts for the first Men in Black film.
 * Boris' goals are similar to those of Edgar the Bug and Serleena.
 * Boris was portrayed by Jemaine Clement.
 * It is possible that Boris had two Weasels, but the other one was destroyed with his arm.
 * Unlike other main villains in the movies, Boris doesn't fight J or K in his true form, in fact his true form only appears for a few seconds onscreen before K destroyed him.
 * Boris hates being called "Boris The Animal" A notion that J uses against him when he was trying to keep him from killing K on the Apollo 11 tower.
 * Boris is similar to Captain Hook from Peter Pan: Both lost a body part because of their enemies, leading them to seek vengeance on their respective enemies. Also, the concept of Boris going back in time to kill Agent K is similar to the events of the Terminator films.

Appearances

 * Men in Black III