Cinema Reviews
Weekend of August 2, 2002
"MEN IN BLACK II"
Rated on a 4-star scale. Certificate
PG. USA. 88 minutes. Directed by Barry Sonnenfeld. Written by Barry Fanaro,
Robert Gordon; from a story by Gordon; based on the comic book by Lowell
Cunningham. Starring Will Smith, Tommy Lee Jones, Lara Flynn Boyle, Rip Torn,
Tony Shalhoub, Rosario Dawson, Johnny Knoxville.
The original "Men in Black" hit cinemas in the summer of 1997, but was not released on DVD until September 2000. Now that it's finally available, it should be bought. It will cost you more than a cinema ticket, but doesn't it make sense to pay more for something you love than less for something pointless? "Men in Black II" is a tempting title, but the movie is bland. You could kill ninety minutes with it, but it offers not a thing to excite us.
Oh, what a joy that first film was. I'd never been obsessed with the comic book upon which "MiB" was based, and yet I was thrilled by the adaptation both in the cinema and at home. It was back in those naughty days when I indulged in pirate videos, you see. Copying the film for friends, I saw it over and over, and let its visual buoyancy and goofy sense of fun flow into my consciousness the same way I had welcomed "Back to the Future".
"Men in Black II" gives me nothing to rave about. It's kinda colourful and bouncy, and it features a lot of cool-looking aliens, but rather than expanding on the aesthetics of the first movie, it copies and dilutes them. Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones are great actors, fun to watch in the lead roles. There are some funny scenes with a talking dog. And I like the moment in which Jones looks at a mannequin chauffeur, asks if he came with the car and gets the response, "It came with a black dude, but he kept getting pulled over."
That's about it. This film is a time-wasting exercise. You will recall that at the end of the first movie, Jones had his memory wiped and retired from the government agency keeping secret checks on visitors from outer space. Now, information is needed from the deepest corners of Jones's mind, but Smith doesn't find that out for a while, and so the first third of the picture lacks half of the starring duo. Smith is amusing, but without Jones to riff with, it seems like there's too much plot. A better sci-fi comedy would mask its heaps of functional story details by communicating them to us beneath the surface as it made us laugh.
Smith and Jones are finally reunited, and they need to reinstall Jones's memory, save MiB headquarters from capture and protect an important box of light from a slithery alien named Serleena, who is disguised as a supermodel and played by Lara Flynn Boyle. Nice idea, except Boyle seems curiously muted. Her role is that of a snarling, hammy B-movie villain, and her costume seems inspired by Vampira's clothes from "Plan 9 From Outer Space", but her delivery is simply flat.
I dunno. I sat through "Men in Black II" just fine, enjoying the colour, the faces and voices of the actors, the brilliant set design, and of course that talking dog. But there's no sense of excitement to the thing, and nothing to be gotten from it that we couldn't get more of from the predecessor. I can't recommend the film, because although it may not bore you, neither would ninety extra minutes of sleep.
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2002 Ian Waldron-Mantgani
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