While the second film didn't do quite as great as Columbia Pictures had hoped, it still made a ton of money, and absolutely demanded another sequel. And we got that sequel, didn't we?

A full decade later!

Yes, folks, the old gang is back again, having TIME JUMPED all the way from 2002 to 2012! Director Barry Sonnenfeld, producer Steven Spielberg, composer Danny Elfman and, of course, stars Will Smith (as Agent J) and Tommy Lee Jones (as Agent K). Hell, David Koepp has been reported to have done an uncredited rewrite of Etan Cohen's screenplay (based, as all of these films were, on Lowell Cunningham's Men In Black comic book from Malibu Comics (now owned by Marvel Comics).

This time out the series takes a completely different turn. It would have to, no? Can't keep making the same film over and over again... unless you're making a Transformers flick, that is. This time we run smack-dab into an incarcerated Alien named Boris the Animal, played by Jermaine Clement (from the comedy folk band "Flight of the Conchords")! And let me tell you, this hombre is the rootinest, tootinest, bad-ass desperado in the west (side of the MOON, that is)... and he's got a serious mad on for our own Agent K, the MIB Agent responsible for locking him up way, way back in 1969, okay?

While his prison escape (thanks to a hot metal chick named Lily Poison and played by Nicole Scherzinger, showing off her own twin peaks and Led Zeppelins) should freak out the entire Men In Black organization, especially new leader Agent O (Emma Thompson) - and it does - they seem to be a little more preoccupied by a little something bigger... like, oh, say, an Alien Invasion!

Yeah, this film fits nicely into the Alien Invasion category... which, in this film's hilarious universe, leads directly to Smith's Agent J needing to Time Travel back to 1969 (complete with cool-ass, retro-looking Time Machine) to save the proverbial day, man!

It's at this point that the real fun begins and kicks into high gear. Running into famous faces and historical events, J must team up with the younger version of his partner (here played by Josh Brolin in a perfect impression of Tommy Lee Jones) to catch the bad guy and save the future.

The special effects in the film are excellent, especially when we see the already retro-stylings of the technology rocked back to the late 1960s for a speculative future locked in the age of the Hippies (during the final season of the original Star Trek)! Running into the day's MIB Agents like the young Agent O (Alice Eve), the artistic and familiar looking Agent W (Bill Hader), a decidedly spacey Alien named Griffin (Michael Stuhlbarg) and cameos from the crew, like make-up maestro Rick Baker (as "Brain Alien"), make-up mistress Judy Murdock (as a "Blue Skinned Alien"), Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber as aliens and even director Barry Sonnenfeld as a spectator at Cape Canaveral help to make this movie great fun.

No, it's not perfection, but nitpicking a series like the Men in Black saga seems to be about forty different kinds of missing-the-point! Pointing the finger at Men in Black and saying "that's silly" is like pointing the finger at Jekyll and saying "oh, that's a bit scary, isn't it?". The coolness here is the way Sonnenfeld and his cast and crew keep Men in Black III feeling fresh and funny with a familiar formula wrapped around a brand-spankin' new plot. It's really a lot of fun to experience.

On the other hand, like a lot of intended blockbusters (successful or not), Men in Black III does have its share of fizzled plot points and holes in the script that it easily patches up with Barry Sonnenfeld's clever directing and tens of millions of dollars in groovy special effects. These well-cheesed machine moments don't turn Men in Black III into anything less than a good and superbly fun movie to watch, but it does show a few chinks in the proverbial Men in Black signature suits.

All that plus a genuinely touching twist in the end. Hey, it's not exactly Citizen Kane but it sure as shooting "Space Guns" is worth watching and is worth somewhere around Three and one half Stars out of Five! Yeah, baby! Men In Black III is a rare sequel that is worthy of its title (even a decade after the last entry) with a great cast and crew reunion and a hell of a good time. So until the next Alien Invasion comes and we're caught without a Will Smith movie on Memorial Day, I'll see you in the next reel!