Men in Black III Doesn't Disappoint

By Laurie Senior

Editor-in-Chief

After ten years, the secret government organization that monitors and controls alien activity on and off the planet Earth, the Men in Black, are back, and this time, back in time.  That was one of the slogans for the new hit movie "Men in Black III," which took opening weekend by storm, becoming the #1 movie of that weekend.  I'll let you know right now that I am an avid fan of these of movies, but that doesn't make me biased; I actually expected this third movie to flop and ruin the whole series for me.  Luckily, I was pleasantly proved wrong.

It starts off in the high-security prison on the moon, Lunamax, where super serial killer, Boris the Animal (or just Boris as he prefers to be called) has been held for over 40 years.  Through an elaborate escape plot, he gets out and vows revenge on agent K for stopping his evil plans and shooting off his left arm (mainly the last one) by going back in time and killing him before that event ever happened all those years ago.  By doing this, the present K (Tommy Lee Jones) ceases to exist, and agent J (Will Smith) goes back in time himself to stop the present Boris from killing the younger K (Josh Brolin).

This is where many people get lost in what I like to call the "Back to the Future" effect, which is obviously based off of the hit 80’s trilogy "Back to the Future." This effect is where people get confused about the theory of time travel and consequently have a hard time comprehending the events of a film.  It is because of this that some people said the movie was horrible.  I felt, however, that "Men in Black III" limited the time travel events and kept it very simple and much easier to follow than other movies.  And if you are a stickler for consistency like me, you'll be glad to know that they kept everything in line with the first two movies.

Other people argued that the movie was not that great because it did not have as many funny parts as the other two.  While this was true, it did not mean that it was void of it, as the humorous parts in it did produce laughs.  What replaced the rest of the comedy was a touching and almost sad twist in the storyline, which still held its sci-fi action/adventure feel.  To me, this was a nice change of pace and the movie succeeded in balancing everything together perfectly.

I went into "Men in Black III" thinking it was going to fail, but I came out praising it even more than I did the first two.  This movie gets four intergalactic stars, if not five, and I recommend it to everyone, especially fans of the series.  For those who experience the "Back to the Future" effect, just keep an open mind and let the story tell itself, and you will definitely get it.