Director – Barry Sonnenfeld
Release Date: May 25, 2012
Running Time: 106 minutes
Rating: PG-13
Editor's Rating: *** 1/2 out of 4 stars

Movie trilogies seem to be everywhere today. When I was a kid, they were few and far between (Back to the Future and the original Star Wars come to mind), yet nowadays, they’re almost expected in any moderately successful franchise. For instance, did Legally Blonde really need three movies? I do have to admit, three is a very psychologically satisfying number for one reason or another. Maybe it’s an example of societal conditioning to the number three – three wishes, three bears, the Three Stooges, three little pigs, triforces, the list goes on. Heck, my first foray into writing was a three-part series of 9-page stories I made back in fifth grade. But with the overuse of trilogies these days and my personal opinion of Men in Black’s last outing, Men In Black 2 (not great), I was hesitant to see the latest installment. Imagine my surprise when it turned out to be, in my opinion, the best Men In Black yet!

The story revolves around a fractured timeline in which the villain, the ruthless Boglodite Boris the Animal, travels back in time and kills Agent K, the MIB agent responsible for putting him in prison and wiping out his entire race. All in a day’s work for K, really. With K out of the way, Boris plans to make way for a Boglodite invasion of Earth, resulting in its certain demise. Because of Boris’s actions, no one remembers Kay except for Jay, his partner of fifteen years. It falls to him to travel back in time to save his partner and thereby save the world. What follows is a typical roller coaster of aliens, explosions, and intrigue that culminates in an awesome twist that brings the relationship between Jay and Kay full circle.

It’s really easy to give spoilers for this movie, as it is with most movies about time travel. It would be great if you all commented on this topic here and on the Comedy Movies Forum so we could discuss the coolness further, but for now let me just say that the writing in this movie is much better than you may remember from Men In Black 2. Etan Cohen, who also wrote the screenplay for Tropic Thunder and Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa, is very successful in providing a moving sub-story between the two agents while also making aliens such as Boris and Griffin the fifth-dimensional alien memorable characters.

The casting in the film is rather spot-on. Josh Brolin pulls off a carbon copy performance of Tommy Lee Jones’s Texas drawl and stiff composition, while bringing a little (but not too much) vitality to the role. Emma Thompson’s brings a formality that foils well between both Jones and Will Smith. Alice Eve, who plays Thompson’s younger self, is a bubbly personality that gels well with Brolin’s terseness. Bill Hader makes a great cameo in this movie – his cynical tone is a unique take on an American legend.

All in all, Men In Black 3 is a great movie to sit down and watch for the fun of it. It’s out on DVD now, but it’s making the rounds on HBO. It brings the laughs as always, and gives the audience sense of closure to a series that deserves a good ending.

* I watched this movie using a premium movie channel I pay for from my cable provider *