The Men In Black 10 Years Later. Or 40 Years Earlier. Or Something.

Rating: 6/10 (29 June 2013)

I didn't like Men In Black II. I thought it was entirely dull and unoriginal, so I can't honestly say that I had high expectations for the third instalment of the series. But I have to give credit to director Barry Sonnenfeld, who put together a worthy sequel to the memorable original - much better than II, which I would forget, if I only had a neuralizer!
One thing that gave this a fresh feel was introducing time travel. Yes, time travel has been done a lot in movies - and maybe overdone. But it was nevertheless done pretty well in this. In the story, an alien criminal named Boris the Animal (Jemaine Clement) escapes from a prison on the moon to seek his revenge against the human who captured him - our old friend Agent K (again played by Tommy Lee Jones.) His revenge involves going back in time, killing K and setting in motion a series of events that leads to a massive alien invasion of earth. To prevent all of that from happening, Agent J (Will Smith) takes himself back in time, where he encounters a younger Boris and a younger Agent K and becomes involved with trying to plant a defence net that will prevent any future alien invasions on the Apollo spacecraft about to blast off for the moon in July of 1969.
The story was decent, and had its share of humorous moments, very much in the MIB tradition. I thought perhaps a little more could have been done with J trying to fit into 1969. What really made this movie work, in my opinion, was Josh Brolin's performance as the young K. He was almost a dead ringer for what you would have expected K to look like 40 years ago. He captured the role perfectly.
The movie goes for a little bit of a sentimental ending as J relives his very first meeting with K (a meeting which is totally unexpected) and then everyone moves back to the present.
This is a worthy sequel to the first Men In Black - maybe not enough to put the memory of Men In Black II out of your minds, but it does leave a better taste.