I’LL ALWAYS HAVE YOUR BACK: Special Agent K (Tommy Lee Jones, left) and Special Agent J (Will Smith) are surrounded by enemies, but each one is able to protect the other by keeping their backs to each other.

One sign that scriptwriters have run out of fresh ideas is when they recycle the time-travel theme in order to extend a film series. This approach has been employed over the years in sequels such as The Three Stooges Meet Hercules (1962), Escape from the Planet of the Apes (1971), Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986), and Beastmaster 2: Through the Portal of Time (1991), to name a few.

Even Back to the Future III (1990) doubled-down on the cinematic device when it had Michael J. Fox teleported back to the Wild West instead of to the fifties like the earlier installments.

Fortunately, Men in Black III is more than just another rip-off. Directed by Barry Sonnenfeld (MIB & MIB II), the picture reunites Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones as alien-hunting Agents J and K, respectively.

However, don’t expect to see much of Jones since he only makes what amounts to a couple of cameo appearances during the film’s wraparound opening and closing sequences. Otherwise, Josh Brolin plays K in the story which unfolds in the summer of 1969.

At the picture’s point of departure, we find a one-armed convict called Boris the Animal (Jemaine Clement) sitting behind bars in a maximum security prison located on the moon. The evil alien soon escapes with the help of his cake-bearing girlfriend (Nicole Scherzinger), his first visitor in over 40 years.

Next, Agent J catches wind of the missing fugitive’s plans to travel backwards in order get even with Agent K for having shot off his limb. The vindictive Boris also intends to spearhead an intergalactic invasion of Earth by the Boglodites, a bloodthirsty race of his rogue relatives. Of course, J decides to return to the past too, to keep the world safe for humanity and to make sure his partner survives any attempted rewrite of history.

Courtesy of some preposterous pseudo scientific mumbo-jumbo, J learns that he must accomplish his mission and return to the present in less than 24 hours before a breach in the temporal fracture (huh!) closes. Upon arriving on July 16, 1969, Agent J introduces himself to the 29-year-old incarnation of Agent K, and does his best to loosen up Agent J’s Type-A personality.

What ensues is an engaging mix of special effects mirth and mayhem, with the tension centered on the launch of Apollo 11 at Cape Canaveral. Since there’s never a doubt that Boris and the Boglodites are destined to be subdued, the true payoff arrives after the action subsides by way of an emotional revelation that it would be unfair to spoil.

Very Good (***). Rated PG-13 for violence and suggestive content. Running time: 103 minutes. Distributor: Columbia Pictures.