Men in Black 3

Rated 4.0

An alien criminal (Jemaine Clement) escapes from prison, goes back in time, and kills the Man in Black who sent him up: Agent K (Tommy Lee Jones). This leaves K’s partner J (Will Smith) the only person in the present who remembers him (the reason is foggy but never mind—if he didn’t, there’d be no movie), so J travels back to 1969 to work with K’s younger self (Josh Brolin) to prevent the murder—and by the way, also to save the world. Written by Etan Cohen and directed by Barry Sonnenfeld, this second sequel to the 1997 smash is a vast improvement over the first one, and may even be better than the original. The story is fast and funny (with a sweet and surprising twist at the end), the pacing sharp, and Brolin does a bang-up impression of Jones. The only drawback is the dim (and superfluous) 3-D. J.L.