MIB III an improvement over the second installment

It’s been 10 long years, and the Men in Black have finally returned to silver screens. On May 25, the third installment of the "Men in Black" series was released to theaters, titled "Men in Black III."

Almost all of the original stars return, including (of course) Will Smith as Agent J and Tommy Lee Jones in the role of Agent K. However, a lot of new faces appear in the film, as well.

Josh Brolin ("W.," "No Country for Old Men") stars as a young Agent K, and "The Flight of the Concord’s" Jemaine Clement takes on the role of this story’s villain, Boris the Animal.

Emma Thompson ("Much Ado About Nothing," "Nanny McPhee") takes over for Rip Torn’s character, MIB chief Agent Zed, and Alice Eve ("She’s Out of My League") plays the younger version of her character.

The film begins with an introduction of the major antagonist, Boris the Animal. Clement does an excellent job portraying the savage alien, who returns to Earth seeking revenge against Agent K for shooting his arm off decades ago. Not only does he want revenge, though; Boris uncovers a way to travel back in time to prevent the incident from ever happening, thus preserving his arm and livelihood.

The next day Agent K has disappeared, and J is the only person with any memory of him after his "death" in the 1960s.

At first, no one at the MIB headquarters takes him seriously, but after a threat of world destruction, new chief Agent O (Thompson) guides him in a quest to return his partner to his rightful place in time.

When he travels back in time, J disregards the rules against time-travel meddling and ends up teaming up with a young Agent K to save future K’s life. After all of the extraterrestrial phenomena he’s seen throughout the years – including giant cockroaches and an alien queen in the form of a supermodel – Agent J witnesses perhaps the rarest sight yet: a pleasant, almost carefree Agent K.

Apparently, whatever catastrophic event that made K into the surly man he is today hasn’t yet happened, and audiences are presented with an almost completely different character.

Other than looking strikingly similar to Jones’ character, Brolin presents K as a lighthearted, optimistic person – and even as a bit of a flirt. For fans who are familiar with Jones’ surly demeanor, the change is a laugh-out-loud funny juxtaposition to the K we’re all used to.

Other than Brolin’s performance, there were a few other noteworthy characters that really carried the movie. Even though he was only in it for maybe a collective 10 minutes, Bill Hader ("Saturday Night Live") as Andy Warhol was easily one of my favorite parts of the movie.

Hader plays an MIB agent who is undercover as "Andy Warhol," and he is charged with maintaining an image and atmosphere (aka The Factory) that attracts extraterrestrial beings – a hilarious way of explaining the eccentricities of real-life artist/celebrity Andy Warhol.

I must admit, I didn’t find Smith as entertaining in the film as I expected. Maybe his character is worn out or he’s just lost some of his magic, but I found myself longing for the charisma he brought to the first two movies.

The only other major downside this movie had for me was the 3-D technology. I usually enjoy watching 3-D versions of movies in the theaters, but this is one of the only ones that ended up giving me a headache.

A few of the scenes do look pretty cool, like when Smith is time traveling/falling off of the Chrysler Building in New York, but overall, the effects just aren’t worth it.

If you’re a fan of "Men in Black," give this movie a chance; it’s a lot of fun, and there are worse summer movies. At least it’s a lot better than "Men in Black II."