Mike, remember the first movie? I do. I remember it being funny without it being forced. I remember it being, dare I say, even a bit melancholy at times, as we actually sympathized with Austin, a man out of his time. We could actually believe that he’d try to shag Ms. Kensington, and we could see her slowly being won over by Austin's actual charms. There was real emotion in that first film. I remember that it had an actual story, and yet, was still actually funny.

Then came The Spy Who Shagged Me. The less said about this film, the better. But I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that under any objective criteria, TSWSM was a lot less smart than IMOM. (Yep, we’re going with acronyms here, people, deal with it.) Fat Bastard? Not funny, per se, but simply gross and grotesque, like much of the movie.

That unfortunate trend continues in Goldmember. Call me crazy, but it’s not enough that the title character simply eats chunks of his flaked-off skin. I want to know why. I want to know what that’s supposed to mean other than, “eeeeuuuu.” This film plays a series of rough draft sketches. The jokes that aren’t direct copies of jokes from earlier films fall flat. The jokes that are direct copies of jokes from earlier films are … um … direct copies, and, as such, unforgivably uncreative. And some bits just don’t make any sense at all. (I still have no idea what the whole “Scotty do” thing was about.)

Also, I have to say I strongly disagree with your choice about the past connection between Austin and Dr. Evil. It just doesn’t add anything to the film, and only serves to further undermine the characters. Another note: Dr. Evil has always worked best for me as a genius surrounded by idiots. So what’s the frickin’ deal with his prison gangsta rap bit? That’s cute, for about ten seconds. The remaining three minutes seem interminable.

So, for the inevitable AP4, let’s lose the time travel elements. Let’s return the characters to their core strengths. Let’s try to have fun within a logical structure and framework. To use a bad analogy, it’s the difference between building a house of straw and a house of bricks. IMOM was a brick house. But the last two films have been vapors, thin excuses for poorly conceived jokes and gags that are now neither funny nor fresh.

Other than that …

I've never understood Hollywood's inability to grasp what I consider to be a very basic and simple tenet of entertainment: Don't use too much salt. I mean, salt is good, we all like salt … but nobody orders "salt soup." Nobody wants Lot's wife. And Frank, the talking dog that was the "salt" of the original Men In Black, adding just the right amount of flavor, is the Lot's wife of this movie; a pillar of salt that overwhelms the taste of everything else. Just because "a little bit of talking dog" was great in the first movie, we don't need "talking dog as the frickin' third lead character" of this movie.

Tom Cruise is tolerable, and if you overlook several hideous logical flaws, you might actually enjoy it. Sadly, the gross stupidity on the part of some characters turned me off. Interesting, but flawed.