rediscover their swagger ten years after the lacklustre second instalment. Set largely in July 1969, Men in Black 3 is a time-travelling caper which ties up loose threads into a neat bow, suggesting this could be the end of the Smith and Jones double-act.

It would be an entertaining swansong for a franchise which burst on to the big screen in 1997 and became one of the year’s biggest hits behind Titanic and The Lost World: Jurassic Park.Working in 3D for the first time, director Barry Sonnenfeld imbues each breathlessly orchestrated scene with impish humour, from a protracted kiss that churns stomachs to a slime-slathered skirmish with a giant fish. A couple of the showpiece sequences merit the eye-popping format including a final showdown that inserts J and K into an iconic moment in history.

As usual, visual gags include the flickering video wall at MIB headquarters, which monitors alien activity on Earth and outs Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber and Tim Burton as extra-terrestrial visitors.

The film opens in the Lunar Max high-security prison where a Boglodite assassin called Boris The Animal (Jemaine Clement) engineers a daring escape with help from his sexy girlfriend (Nicole Scherzinger). The snarling supervillain plans to travel back in time and kill the man who put him behind bars and shot off his left arm: Agent K (Tommy Lee Jones). The ripple effect causes Agent K to disappear from the future, heralding a Boglodite invasion of Earth.

“K’s been dead for over 40 years,” Agent O (Emma Thompson) tells a confused and disoriented Agent J (Will Smith) when he turns up for work.

Having ascertained the past has been altered, J also travels back to 1969, where he meets the young Agent K (Josh Brolin), who claims to be 29 years old. “You got some city miles on you . . .” quips J, speaking for us all.

With assistance from the young Agent O (Alice Eve) and an otherworldly soothsayer called Griffin (Michael Stuhlbarg), J races against the clock to save his best friend from annihilation.

Men In Black 3 initially treats us to Smith and Jones in full flow, the former turning to his grizzled partner and sighing: “I am getting too old for this. I can only imagine how you feel.”

Once the plot steps back in time, Brolin broadly captures the deadpan delivery and mannerisms of Jones’s elder incarnation.

The script largely ignores races issues of the era to concentrate on slam-bang thrills, which is a shame but would have bloated the running time, which already feels long at 105 minutes.

Stuhlbarg threatens to upstage everyone in a quixotic supporting role and Thompson lends gravitas but invariably Smith’s wise-cracking and the imaginative production design are the constant sources of wonder.

Resourceful orphan Sam (Jared Gilman) is the least popular member of his Khaki Scout troop, run by Scout Master Ward (Edward Norton) in Moonrise Kingdom. He elopes with pen pal Suzy (Kara Hayward), who shares her lighthouse home with parents Walt (Bill Murray) and Laura (Frances McDormand) and three brothers. Sam is well-prepared for the expedition with a tent and pen-knife but Suzy chooses to pack her books and a battery-powered record player.

As the youngsters head for the beach, Walt and Laura implore local cop Captain Sharp (Bruce Willis) to find their daughter. Ward joins the hunt, determined to find Sam before Social Services (Tilda Swinton) lands on the island to take the boy into care.

Moonrise Kingdom rests heavily on the shoulders of newcomers Gilman and Hayward. Anderson’s camera shoots them predominantly in close-up so there is nowhere to hide fake emotion and both young actors are magnificent.

A-list co-stars invest their roles with larger than life qualities, including Willis whose perpetual smirk suits his bumbling man of the law.