Men in Black 3

MIB3 is the best movie of this summer. I'm not sure if it'll overtake The Avengers at the box office, but it has the emotional core to be considered a superior movie.

Agent J (Will Smith) travels back in time to the '60's and MIB's early years to stop an alien from assassinating his partner, K (Tommy Lee Jones) and thus starting an alien invasion.

J and K are having, well, relationship problems. They never talk any more. Truth be told, we doubt if Agent K ever did. That is, we doubt that until we meet the sixties version of K, played by Josh Brolin. Brolin gives a brilliant impression of Tommy Lee Jones, complete with mannerisms and dialogue. The difference is that the younger K sometimes smiles, and hints of a love long lost.

It's great scripting and great special effects rolled into a movie that competes with itself, the original MIB (not to be mistaken for the rather slow MIB2). The fight scenes are great, the sixties are a hoot, and this new villain -- whoa! You've never seen anything like him before. Boris the Animal (actor Jermaine Clement) has a foreboding presence, and enough little tentacles around his body to achieve what no man -- or alien -- should be able to achieve. And yet there's this chutzpah about Boris that may just be his downfall. One thing of note: There's not as much humor -- you know, the alien-type slime ball humor we saw in MIB Classic. But that's all right. Everything here, or almost everything, services the story.

Emma Thompson is great as the head of the agency after the demise of Zed. Her name is O. It's just too bad that we don't see enough of her.

Smith is fine. Tommy Lee Jones is great. The movie will make you sit up with wonder, but cry yourself to sleep at night.

Thumb's up.