Men in Black II (2002)

Directed by: Barry Sonnenfeld | 88 minutes | action, comedy, science fiction | Actors: Tommy Lee Jones, Will Smith, Rip Torn, Lara Flynn Boyle, Johnny Knoxville, Rosario Dawson, Tony Shalhoub, Patrick Warburton, Jack Kehler, David Cross, Michael Jackson, Tim Blaney

Five years after the surprise hit ‘Men in Black’ it was, in 2002, time for the inevitable sequel. The surprise effect is gone, the plot is even thinner, and the villain less effective. Fortunately, you can count on the still perfectly attuned comic duo Smith and Jones. And occasionally some funny or original looking aliens. It’s just not enough unfortunately.

The first ‘Men in Black’ was a fun, surprising film with a big nod to old, campy science fiction film, with an infectious, ‘Ghost Busters’-like atmosphere. In ‘Men in Black II’ the concept is now well known: the film still revolves around black-clad men who protect society from evil aliens while there are also many extraterrestrials – good and bad – among “us” without the audience knows about this. Sure, there are sometimes people around bizarre encounters (such as with a giant worm in the beginning of ‘Men in Black II’) but a handy device called the “neuraliser” can instantly erase all of the bystanders’ memories and new ones can be implanted. But while it was interesting to learn about all of this in movie 1, it wasn’t where the movie’s great strength lay: the characters and atmosphere were the main thing and the plot was basically afterthought.

In ‘Men in Black II’ Smith and Jones still do their best and are actually just as effective as in part 1. Unfortunately, it takes a while until Jones is brought back from his “retirement” (he works at a post office with an erased memory), but from the moment these two are together again, the film clearly gains in energy and comedic flair. The grumpy, no-nonsense Jones who, together with the now slightly overconfident Smith, takes on the battle with the bad guys, remains a nice “spectacle”, especially if they also enter the (verbal) battle with each other, but unfortunately there are too many distractions that bring the film down as a whole.

It must be said that the first partner of “J” (Smith) in the film, recruit “K”, played by Patrick Warburton, is very successful with his dry humor, and that even the next partner, a talking dog (alien) , gets a lot of laughs on his hand, but the two-headed Scrad (Johnny Knoxville) still doesn’t manage to smile on the viewer’s face and the worm-like aliens that were also in part 1 get a far too large share here, ensuring free spine-tingling, kid-friendly action and humor in the film’s final act.

The budding romance between “J” and Laura (Rosario Dawson) seems to provide an interesting bit of drama and tenderness, but it all remains a bit superficial and platonic. Then the strange, but also sexy dynamic with Linda Fiorentino’s character Elle in part 1 was a bit more tantalizing.

The plot, or the driving force behind the story – a dull quest for a powerful light to be hidden from an evil genius in the universe – is little to get excited about. But, even worse – since it’s always about saving the universe and the details are really afterthought – the villain here isn’t intimidating or entertaining at all. The only “nice” thing is that Lara Flynn Boyle is constantly walking around in her underwear or with considerable cleavage, but outside of that, as the nemesis of the MiB, she hardly holds the attention. She does make at least one funny observation: that Earth is a bizarre planet, because of the infinite power that possessors of well-developed mammary glands have here. So it’s not surprising that, as part 1 already taught us, silicones were actually invented by aliens. Smart guys.