A worthy sequel to the great first movie

Rating: 8/10 (1 June 2019)

Having finally got around to watching MiB 3 I must admit that I really enjoyed it - and I'm also very surprised at the amount of hate it seems to have garnered on here.
Some of the most highly rated very negative views seem to have been posted for some extremely puzzling reasons. Someone got 50 "helpful" ratings for giving the movie 3/10 because the cinema overcharged them, which just makes my mind boggle in all honesty. It's not the director's fault you paid £10 for a ticket in a specific cinema...!
Anyway, in my opinion MiB 3 is the great movie the dismal MiB 2 should have been. Gone are the cringe-inducing failures of wacky try-hard slapstick the second movie tried to pass off as comedy, and instead we have taut references to the first movie, a tight plot and solid humour throughout.
The banter and chemistry between Tommy Lee Jones and Will Smith is as fun as ever, and Jemaine Clement (of Flight of the Conchords fame) makes a great turn as sociopathic alien Boris "the Animal", a villain just as goofy and perhaps even more sinister than Edgar in the first movie.
I particularly liked the new character Griffin, played by Michael Stuhlbarg. A slightly neurotic benevolent alien who can see every possible past and future, Griffin adds a gentle element of comedy and kindness to the darker and more violent edge the rest of the film holds. Boris is perhaps the most ruthless enemy the duo have faced, and Griff balances this out.
In fact, I think my favourite thing about MiB 3 is the the amount of heart it has, just like the first movie. It's got plenty of laughs (many small ones, a few big ones) but it's clear it *cares* about the mythos and the franchise. It's not just a cash-in or a mindless laugh-athon.
The ending of MiB 1, in which K notes the beauty of the stars and prepares to have his memory of his career wiped is still hauntingly poignant to this day.
Instead of trying to clumsily ape or surpass that emotional swell, MiB 3 cleverly amplifies it with a neat twist that not only tugs at the heartstrings right at the end of the film, but also makes the first movie even better. It's rare that a sequel can re-contextualise a previous movie and make us like the characters even more, but MiB 3 pulls it off smoothly.
I've also seen a lot of people complain that this film is "dumb comedy" but I think that does it a pretty heavy injustice. I actually thought the script was pretty sharp-edged and smart.
There are no gaping plot holes (which for a time travel film is impressive), the jokes are entertaining (people saying the film is politically incorrect clearly missed the sarcasm and brief commentary on racism in 1969). Questions like "Why can Boris breathe in space?" are answered by...Boris is *an alien*. We literally have no idea whether he even needs to breathe or not. He's made of gross wormy stuff. Who knows?
To conclude, I'm giving this 8/10. It felt like I was watching the MiB I know and love from the first movie again and combined genuinely funny humour with some emotional heft too. I think this movie is underrated.