A far better improvement over MIB 2

Rating: 9/10 (27 May 2012)

After MIB 2 came out, it seemed like for the longest time that MIB 3 wasn't going to go anywhere. Both movies were treated the same way as the Ghost Busters franchise: the first, everyone liked, and the second just totally faltered and had fewer fans than usual. The first film had a nice intro that brought the audience to grips with its characters and story. However, the sequel didn't bring anything new to the screen. The character roles were just switched and a new villain was inserted and had the same intentions of invading earth. But by comparing this film to the first sequel, the first sequel is nowhere close to this one story wise.
Coming back to the screen is Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones as the alien crime-fighting duo. Both actors retain their personalities from the previous films, which is always a good thing. Their mission? To stop a Bogladite named Boris from returning to the past and killing Agent K. If Agent K is killed in the past, a Bogladite invasion will begin on Earth in Agent J's time because there is a certain key that will be missing that allows Earth's protection from a Bogladite invasion. Returning for another run is composer Danny Elfman who provided the music to the last two films. However, the score has a little more guitar in it. I'm not complaining though. The music still sounded great, it just sounded a tad different.
Jemaine Clement plays Boris, which is weird because every time I saw Boris, I saw Tim Curry. I guess because of the way he spoke? I really can't explain it but I felt like I was watching him and not Clement. But all that has to be said for this character is that this is one tough villain. Boris is not just ugly, he's fierce and unforgiving and that's perfect. It was even funnier when the future Boris met with himself from the past; even he wasn't nice to himself. Watching Boris recalled to how the villain from MIB 2 just wasn't good enough. The character of Serleena played by Lara Flynn Boyle just didn't seem make her character mean enough. But this is only one character of the film.
Audiences will find Michael Stuhlbarg as Griffin, quite an interesting and entertaining character because of his range of probability fortune telling. And then you have Josh Brolin who gives an undeniably excellent performance as playing young Agent K. Brolin's mannerisms, facial expressions and word use show how long Brolin studied the character of Agent K. However, the only thing wasn't pleasing was that some of the characters from the first two movies didn't reprise their roles for this film. But why? These were the characters that helped make the first one a hit and the second a mild hit (for some). A few characters were explained to why they didn't show up, while others were just totally unmentioned. Where was director Barry Sonnenfeld when that happened?
The action, dialog, and sci-fi effects are still great to look at in this film. But the idea of going back in time was an interesting take. It was fun to see what kinds of things MIB used back in the mid 1900s. I got a big laugh when J was about to get an "eye exam", compared to what it was like in the first movie. This kind of material shows how ridiculous and over the top MIB was as a growing corporation and it's funny to watch, especially the way J handles the issues. The best thing about this movie though, is the story. The plot explores so much of the two main characters. It explains to why K is K. Even more interesting is how it reaches into the background of J, which is new because MIB 1 & 2 didn't bother to dig into this area before. In the end, I was almost just as satisfied watching this film as to the first. I guess waiting 10 years or so can really turn a franchise around.
Men In Black 3 is far better than MIB 2 because of its in depth story line and how it focuses on its characters from a different perspective. However, it is not as good as the first because it lacks the supporting characters from previous installments. But after watching this second sequel, viewers will understand much more about the MIB duo than the first two films could ever try to explain.