I won’t see Men in Black 3 until this weekend, but if a mildly grumpy guy like Marshall Fine half likes it then maybe. The Rotten Tomatoes rating is 67%. Presumably some HE regulars caught it yesterday. Reactions?

“I will admit: I tend to have a bias against movies with the number ‘3’ in the title,” Fine begins. “If there’s ever a dead giveaway that all imagination has been sapped from a movie, it’s that second sequel (as if the first sequel wasn’t bad enough). Sure, the filmmaker can say, ‘Oh, I planned to make it a trilogy all along. Tell me another.

“There are exceptions, but not many of them. Still, I’m willing to add Men in Black 3 to the very short list of third outings that actually work — better by far than the second film, perhaps even better than the first.

“The director once again is Barry Sonnenfeld, but the key player here is one who isn’t even mentioned in the credits. While the writer of record is Etan Cohen” — not Ethan Coen of Joel and Ethan — “two other (and probably better) writers are listed on IMDB: David Koepp and Jeff Nathanson, both of whom have lengthy lists of strong films on their filmographies.

“The point is that the script is better for this film than either of the previous two. The first one had the disadvantage of being an origin story: trying to tell an actual story, while introducing the universe of the comic books on which it was based. The second one was simply a rehash of the first with a slight twist, bigger special effects and weaker jokes.”