A very entertaining (even if unnecessary) installment in the Men in Black franchise

Rating: 7/10 (26 May 2012)

It has been 10 years since Men in Black II and 15 years since the original Men in Black. Having been so long since the second installment, it seems odd that the choice was made to make this franchise into a trilogy. There didn't seem to be a call from fans for another movie, the length of time since the last movie is so great it is easy to forget what happened in the first two movies, and the stars of the film are a decade older than when they last played these characters.
But Agent J and Agent K are back and, even though we may have forgotten about them over time, they are still very entertaining.
The third film in the series, Men in Black III follows Agent J (Will Smith) and his journey back in time to save his partner, Agent K (Tommy Lee Jones), from being murdered by an evil alien named Boris the Animal (Jemaine Clement). Teaming up with the younger Agent K (Josh Brolin) in 1969 when he was only 29, Agent J must find Boris and help kill him before he kills his partner and eliminates him from the future.
Before I go any further, I must say that I was surprised that Men in Black III was made into a time travel movie. It was a very easy and uninspired plot device and seemed like more of an episode in a TV show than an installment in a movie. If Men in Black was a TV show, we could look at this adventure and say, "O, here is that one where Agent J had to go back in time to save K." But this is a film, and now one third of the franchise deals with time travel.
The biggest problem I had with this was the amount of screen time Tommy Lee Jones had in this movie. Men in Black III is more of a story about the Josh Brolin Agent K than the Tommy Lee Jones Agent K. The problem that I had with this was that this is Men in Black. It is Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones. These ARE the Men in Black. The equivalent would be Robert Downey Jr.'s Sherlock Holmes going back in time and solving mysteries with a Watson that Jude Law wasn't playing or Chris Tucker going back to 1920s Rush Hour traffic without Jackie Chan by his side. I know Tommy Lee Jones is older, but it sucks to watch a Men in Black film without more of him.
That being said, Josh Brolin is awesome in this movie. As I missed not seeing Tommy Lee Jones on screen, Brolin gives a great impersonation of him in his young Agent K that makes it feel like Jones hasn't gone anywhere. Brolin's timing, inflection, and posture all suite the character perfectly and he is really fun to watch playing off of Will Smith.
To read the rest of the review (IMDb form too short) visit: http://custodianfilmcritic.com/menin-blackiii/