| MEN IN BLACK II Rating:  Director: Barry Sonnenfeld Producer: Laurie McDonald, Walter F. Parkes Writer: Robert Gordon, Barry Fanaro Director of Photography: Greg Gardiner Cast: Will Smith, Tommy Lee Jones, Lara Flynn Boyle, Rip Torn Visit the IMDB page for full cast and crew |
 Click the photo to buy merchandise from Men in Black 2 |
Review by: Dan
Tester
7/07/02
I grew up in Wisconsin and spent 25 years watching movies there. In Wisconsin, people go to see a movie, and when it is over, they get up and leave. Even after watching cinematic beauties like Schindler's List and Goodfellas, people just got up after the film and went home. Then I moved to Los Angeles, and I noticed a bizarre phenomenon. People sometimes applaud after a film is finished. This has always been very strange to me. The filmmakers aren't there, nor are the actors or writers. Why is it necessary to applaud? I can only surmise that, from my overall experiences in LA, it is the overwhelming need here to be noticed. Look at me! I liked it! All during the summer of 2002, at the end of all the steaming piles of crap that I have sat through like Changing Lanes, Bad Company, and Enough, people have applauded at the end. It is usually a smattering -- sometimes more, sometimes less -- but consistently it is always there as the end credits begin to crawl. I only bring this up, because at the end of the stunningly bad Men In Black II, no one applauded. People just staggered up and out of the theater like traumatized survivors of a plane crash.
I am not surprised that no one applauded Men In Black II. If ever there was a film that was solely created to bilk the viewer out of 8 bucks with no attempt whatsoever to give them even half of their money's worth, MIB2 is it. It is a sequel with none of the original's creativity, charm or chemistry. It is a soulless, heartless mass-produced disaster.
In 1997, I was shocked at how much I enjoyed Men In Black. It was a real throwback to the good old-fashioned summer blockbusters of my youth, full of witty dialogue, engaging characters, clever special effects, and it was a justifiable smash success. A sequel was surely in the cards, but in the five years since, it seems the filmmakers lost complete touch with how to recreate the remarkable qualities that made the first film such a great movie. Will Smith is back as Agent J, but has now matured from his neophyte punk kid role in the first film, now assuming the boring, authoritative role held in the first film by Agent K (Tommy Lee Jones). Not that Jones was boring at all in the first film -- he was great playing off Smith's spunkiness. It was called chemistry. But Smith is not given anyone interesting to play off of in the sequel.
This does not work at all, because Will Smith was hilariously in his element in the underling role, but now appears horribly bored, and his performance reflects it. It takes an amazingly long 40 minutes or so to reintroduce Jones as Agent K, whose memory (if you remember from the original) was erased so he could reassume a normal life with his beloved wife. Well, for reasons far too trivial to go into, Jones must now come back to reassume his role as Agent K to save the world once again. But even once Jones is back, their chemistry never achieves the level of success of the first film. They look like two old comedy partners, separated too long, trying to remember what made it work in the past. It is just a mess.
There really just doesn't seem to be much of a movie here at all. It just seems like a lame remake of the first film. The whole thing plays more like a compilation of the "deleted scenes" on the DVD release of the first Men In Black. And, usually, when one watches these DVD features, the anticipation of something great is always there, but ultimately, it is the consensus that the scenes definitely deserved to be deleted. MIB2 in its entirety feels like this.
Also back is Rip Torn as the big boss, Agent Zed. Is something wrong with Rip Torn? He appeared so tired and sickly in this film. The talking dog, so funny in his brief appearance in Men In Black, is back in an expanded role as one of Will Smith's new partners. It is uncomfortably unfunny, although the scene in which the spastic mutt barks along to "Who Let The Dogs Out?" by the Baja Men was one of the few genuinely funny moments. The worms are back too, and it seems Barry Sonnenfeld and his writers set out to "one-up" George Lucas and his beloved Jar Jar Binks by allowing far too much screen time to these annoying creatures. Lara Flynn Boyle oozes sex as the villainous alien Serleena, but she looks so horribly thin and gaunt, that even though her home planet was never specified, there was no doubt in my mind where her character came from: Planet Hollywood.
But I know everyone will go out and see
MIB2 because they "liked the first one." They
will be disappointed, but in a few months will purchase the DVD
or VHS because they "liked the first one." Just please
do me one favor: Don't call yourselves happy-go-lucky moviegoers,
who just like to sit and be entertained without requiring any
real effort on the filmmakers part. Please just call a spade a
spade and refer to yourselves as what you are: I believe the term
is "Hollywood Enablers."
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