Release Year: 1997

Genre: Adventure, Comedy, Sci-Fi

Director: Barry Sonnenfeld

Writer: Ed Solomon and Lowell Cunningham (comic)

Stars: Will Smith, Tommy Lee Jones

We've all heard about "them." You know who we're talking about. A bunch of men at the head of a covert organization that have the money, knowledge, and political clout to run the world from behind the closed doors. They control the affairs of humanity and keep the truth of the world hidden by manipulating our memories with false information to further their dark, secretive agendas.

No we aren't talking about Reddit.

We're talking about the Men in Black.

Based on the Marvel comic of the same name, Men in Black is about the secret agency of, well, the Men in Black, whose job is to manage all the intergalactic aliens living here on Earth, and to keep their existence a secret from the rest of us. The film's running joke is that just about anyone could be an alien—they're walking among us and we don't even know it. (We've all wondered about Ryan Seacrest, though…)

After losing his partner on their last mission, MiB Agent K recruits NYPD Detective James Darrell Edwards III, who becomes Agent J. During Jay's first day on the job, Earth becomes entangled in the crossfire between two warring alien species, and Kay and Jay must protect an entire Galaxy to save the Earth.

So no pressure.

Men in Black was 1997's summer hit. Blending those newfangled computer graphics with excellent practical effects, the film created a crazy, kinetic, and fun world for audiences and critics to inhabit. Moviegoers welcomed the invite, resulting in the film grossing roughly $250 million domestic.

Even the critics enjoyed themselves. Decades later, the film still maintains a 92 percent on Rotten Tomatoes with a consensus that it has "a smart script" and "charismatic performances from its leads," resulting in a "satisfying summer blockbuster." In other words, this shines as one of the least embarrassing pop culture moments to hail from the late '90s. Those of you who lived through those years know the unholy depths of which we speak.

As always happens when Hollywood smells money, Men in Black became a franchise. It spawned one meh sequel and one pretty good one. It had a Saturday morning cartoon show for the kiddos and a line of toys, not to mention video games, board games, and a theme park ride. It even had its own theme songs, which didn't ask you who you were gonna call but simply said here they come.

Hollywood never left the Men in Black franchise to sit idly on the shelf to collect dust, but it hasn't kept it a focal point of our cultural consciousness, either—the gap between the second and third movie was 10 years.

So before the inevitable reboot, let's take a look at this classic science-fiction, buddy-cop comedy and see what we can find.

Every summer, the movie lineup contains more and more spectacle-driven films about tight-clad super-humans walloping each other over magical MacGuffins or silly misunderstandings. And there's no sign the trend will be slowing down anytime soon. The Marvel and D.C. cinematic universes line up super hero films five years at a time.

Will either of these universes have a major metropolitan area left when they're all done? They make Godzilla look like a paragon of self-restraint in the city-leveling department.

Men in Black was released during an interesting time in the history of comic book movies. As M. Keith Booker points out, in the late '90s "the strongest trend in graphic cinema […] had been toward darker and darker depictions of troubled superheroes in morally ambiguous situations." Grim and gritty examples? Tim Burton's Batman films, The Crow, and Dark Man, for starters.

MiB pulled a trendsetting 180 and served up a light-hearted action comedy, similar to pre-Batman superhero films like Superman. MiB's good guys are virtuous and heroic while the bad guys are bad and, technically speaking, not even guys. The film was also very colorful with a procession of charming alien designs courtesy of Rick Baker. About the only thing it has in common with Tim Burton's Batman films is its comic book origins and a cool car.

Also counter to the '80s and early '90s trend, Men in Black was a huge success, and the highest grossing Marvel comic adaptation at that time. And so an old trend reemerged as the new thing. After MiB, superhero films became light-hearted, colorful affairs again, like Sam Raimi's Spider-Man and Bryan Singer's X-Men.

Today, we have an embarrassment of riches, and both trends peacefully coexist in the superhero genre. Audiences wanting a fun adventurous romp can enjoy Guardians of the Galaxy, while those who want more neck-snapping depression in their films can wallow through Snyder's Man of Steel. Captain America: Civil War mind-melds both trends by providing a morally ambiguous conflict between two fan-favorite superheroes while also allowing Iron-Man and Spider-man the chance to clown around.

That's why this movie, crazy as it seems, was—yes, we'll say it— historic. Men in Black found itself at a fulcrum point between two trends, and its success helped ensure that heavy and light stuff survived the modern movie era.