Men in Black 3 (2012)
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Agent J must travel back in time to prevent the assassination of his partner Agent K and stop a threat to Earth.
The story
In 2012, the alien criminal Boris the Animal escapes from a maximum-security prison on the Moon to seek revenge on Men in Black Agent K. After a confrontation with his partner Agent J, the situation escalates as it is revealed that K's past actions involved a critical intervention to protect Earth. To rectify the timeline and ensure the safety of the planet, Agent J is forced to travel back in time to July 16, 1969. He must navigate the past to stop Boris's actions before they can cause a catastrophic collapse of the space-time continuum and allow a hostile invasion of Earth.
Full plot (contains spoilers)
After Boris the Animal escapes from the Moon and threatens the timeline, Agent J travels back to 1969. He joins a younger Agent K to track down a time machine and an alien named Griffin who can see all outcomes. They discover that a device called the ArcNet must be attached to the Apollo 11 rocket to protect Earth from a Boglodite invasion. The trio travels to Cape Canaveral, where they face off against the older Boris and his younger self. In the climax, K successfully attaches the ArcNet while the older Boris is destroyed by the rocket's exhaust. The timeline is restored, and J discovers that the military officer he encountered in the past was actually his own father. In the present day, J and K reconcile while Griffin remains in the current year.
- First release year
- 2012
- Runtime (minutes)
- 106
- Production countries
- United States
- Original languages
- English
- Directors
- Barry Sonnenfeld
- Writers
- Etan Cohen · writer; David Koepp · uncredited; Jeff Nathanson · uncredited
- Cast and characters
- Will Smith · Agent J; Tommy Lee Jones · Agent K; Josh Brolin · Agent K (1969); Jemaine Clement · Boris the Animal; Michael Stuhlbarg · Griffin; Emma Thompson · Agent O
- Genres
- science fiction; action; comedy
- Themes
- time travel; sacrifice; partnership
- Tone and mood
- action; comedy
- Premise and plot tags
- sci-fi; buddy cop; time travel
- Source material / true-story basis
- The Men in Black comic book series
- Franchise connections
- Men in Black
- Reception
- The film received generally positive reviews from critics, with praise for the performances of the cast and being considered an improvement over its predecessor.
- Reported review scores
- Rotten Tomatoes · score: 67% · scale: percentage · review count: 250; Metacritic · score: 58 · scale: 100 · review count: 38
- Production trivia
- One of the most expensive films ever made; The film's premise was first proposed by Will Smith during the filming of Men in Black II; The production used a Ford Taurus SHO as the MIB's official car in the present day
Film metadata comes from the open sources listed in Credits & Contact. Catalogue details may be incomplete.
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