Men in Black 3: Will Smith in a Bow Tie

Men in Black III

AKA Better than Men in Black II

That's reason enough to go out and purchase your tickets.

The story begins with our old friend Agent J, doing what he's done for 14 years, which is to catch alien baddies with his partner Agent K. The two are frustrated with each other, and Agent J is ready for Agent K to open up to him about anything personal, just to break up the monotony. That's when a guy named Boris the Animal enters the picture, bringing up a fiercer Agent K than Agent J is prepared for. When he wakes one morning to find Agent K mysteriously disappeared, Agent J goes back in time by jumping off a building to find his partner.

I liked this movie quite a lot, and I didn't expect to. Sequels and trilogies tend to make the mistake of assuming we know everything there is to know about the main character that we fell for in the first movie, and so they must be done bigger and better right? With a fast moving plot and no character development, or at least no character development that coincides with the stuff that happened in the first movie. Men in Black II was very much guilty of that, but Men in Black III added little touches here and there to keep character development fresh. We see a glimpse into the living spaces of J and K, as well as into their hobbies. I liked how Agent J was playing Mass Effect 3, for instance. As if he doesn't fight enough aliens, he goes home to it as well.

Those were the characters we already knew. As for the newbie bad guy, I am less than impressed. He's introduced as Boris the Animal, and is played by the brilliantly awesome Jemaine Clement. Boris' character design was great, I liked how they incorporated his human disguise, and I liked how he was over the top. However, I wished he could have had more going on in the film. He had a lot of dumb one liners, like "You complete me," talking about his hand spider/crab (sounds pretty cool, no?), that I could have done without. It was unfortunate how his character was thrown in for scene advancement. But... I still thought he was cool.

But what tickled me in places that I forgot were inside of me, was the time period that most of the movie takes place in: 1969. Moon landing. Any other Dr. Who fans out there? I was waiting for the broadcast of the moon landing to tell me to kill every Silence I see on sight. I was also waiting for Will Smith to bust out a stetson and a bow tie. Because bow ties are cool, and I bet Will Smith thinks he could make one "look good."