10 Most Shockingly Improved Movie Sequels

After Men in Black II turned out to be a gigantic letdown in 2002, there wasn't much reason to expect anything good from Men in Black 3, which had so damn much working against it throughout production.

Belated comedy sequels are a tough nut to crack at the best of times, and honestly, was there still much enthusiasm for Men in Black as an IP after one great movie and one dud sequel? Moreover, shooting was a nightmare, as the threequel began filming without a completed script, forcing production to take a break half-way through in order for them to crack the second and third acts. This unconventional approach caused the budget to balloon to $225 million - almost the combined total of the first two movies - and ensured pre-release expectations were basically through the floor.

Despite this, MiB 3 turned out to be a surprisingly worthy sequel to the original, making the most of its time-travel hook to tell an unexpectedly affecting story bolstered by a killer performance from Josh Brolin as a younger version of Tommy Lee Jones' Agent K.

Hell, even filmmaker Paul Thomas Anderson called it "f**king great," which might be the most strangely righteous endorsement a mammoth blockbuster could ever get.