Summer is a fun time, the freedom, the weather, time spent together with those special to you. The combination of all of these factors, makes the summertime, a truly special one. Hollywood is no different in this thinking, capitalizing on this fact of making summer fun, knowing that is what the public desires. Somewhere along the line though, the moviemakers got lost, forgetting that the moviegoing public still wants a little intelligence with it's fun. Recent examples include the pure drivel of Batman & Robin, the contrived unconvincing Con-Air, and the thoughtless marketing and attempted capitalization of Speed 2. I had almost given up hope on this summer, until I saw Men In Black. Director Barry Sonnenfeld (Get Shorty) shows that a movie can be humorous, action-packed and still smart and satirical. The laughs are aplenty, both slapstick (an alien baby bouncing Will Smith on a hood as Tommy Lee Jones calmly interviews an "alien") and smart (showing a tracking board of all known aliens, to include Newt Gingrich, Sly Stallone, and an uproarious take on Dennis Rodman). The performances are all dead-on, although Linda Fiorentino could have been given a bit more in her role as a suspicious coroner, but Smith is normal, cutesy, self, the same character essentially from ID4, but this time with a better script and smarter story. He does it well, it works, don't change it. Jones is a deadpan riot, never changing his vocal intonations, even when delivering some of the movies funnier lines. Almost stealing the movie is Vincent D'Onofrio (Mystic Pizza, Feeling Minnesota) in an almost Chaplin-on-a-rampage like, role, as a barely speaking, mostly incomprehensible, determined alien, bent on saving his universe and destroying ours. All in all, this movie just has fun, the plot is a bit predictable, but who cares, it's like going on a journey, to a familiar place, but taking a more scenic route, you know where you're going, but it sure is fun getting there