Slashdot Mirror
Review: Men In Black II
The story line is almost irrelevant. Will Smith (Agent Jay) has to neuralize one dumb partner after another, and ends up with a smart-mouthed, sometimes hilarious pug for a partner. He pines for his former sidekick Tommy Lee Jones (Agent Kay), now neuralized and working for the institution with the greatest number of aliens, the U.S. Post Office. (The movie, like the first, gets off some great double entendres and inside jokes).
The movie opens with a campy Peter Graves spoof on the Ed Woods' style sci-fi movies of the 50's and 60's. Simply, Lara Flynn Boyle plays Serleena, the powerful alien queen ravaging earth to get her hands on a distant planet's light source. If she isn't stopped, the world will be destroyed, of course. Her prescence forces the MIB agency (headed by Sid, played by Rip Torn) to go and de-neuralize Kay, who comes back to re-join his buddy and save the world.
This is all beside the point, of course. The whole film is a device for Sonnenfeld's loopy rags on Martha Stewart (not perhaps as funny as it would have been a month ago) and Michael Jackson. There are hilarious locker room and worm aliens, and blessedly, the movie never takes itself seriously for a single second. Like the better parts of the Scream series, the movie ends up spoofing itself and the people who loved it.
If you go see it, all you need to know is that the surprise originality of the first is missing, mostly because we know what to expect, but the loopy and inventive spirit of MIB is very much alive.
CmdrTaco my 2 bits is that this movie was bland. It probably is my least favorite of the last half dozen movies I've seen. I loved the original, but this just doesn't have the punch of the first. Its got its moments, but the whole ride is weak. Watch Lilo & Stich instead ;)
It has also lost some of the originality. What happened to new movies with original screenplays?
Crapdot
News from birds. Stuff that splatters.
Point B: With the possible exceptions of The Godfather Part II, Aliens, Superman II and Raquel Darrian's boob job...*all* sequels s***.
Point A + Point B = MIIB S***s!
Chris
Spoiler.
According to IMDB:
The original ending of the film included a scene in which the World Trade Center towers opened up, releasing a swarm of UFOs into the air. Following the towers' destruction the ending was re-shot and now takes place at the Chrysler Building.
No it doesn't. Anyone know what the story is with this? Did the script or storyboard for this scene ever leak?
--
Mod up a post Rob doesn't like and you'll never mod again
This is the problem with America. There's this attitude that cartoons are ONLY for kids and that adults won't be interested in them. The "adult-oriented" 'toons are either slapstick comedy (ie the Simpsons), hyper-violent Japanese imports, or pr0n. (Also usually imported from Japan. America's really lacking in imagination, I guess.)
I LOVED the Emperor's New Groove. It was funny and fun to watch. It has a moral, but it doesn't beat you over the head with it the way, say, The Lion King does. While I have yet to see Lilo and Stitch, I plan to ASAP. It too looks to be a lot of fun.
For those wondering "WTF?," Take a look here. On the seventh line, there's a link to an image of a ballchin boy..
I was hurt by how cheezy the plot holes in the movie where.
We have an orginization that is in control of the worlds aliens and does all check ins yet has no backup plan for a rogue alien in the terminal?
After agent K get's deneralized, and I mean as he gets out of the chair, he is talking about how he can't remember what they are looking for becuase he neralized himself to make him forget where he put it or what it was. Um what about the deneralizer you just used to get your memory back?
I am not one to bitch about a movie using suspension of disbelief to get a point across. As I have told people before I am paying $8 to see fantasy, if I wanted to see real life I would go stand on the street corner for two hours. Their is a limit of course and I feel that this movie did not do enough to try and cover for that. Something as simple as having his memory coming back over years durring the course of the movie would have worked. With him hitting the relevant information at the right moment. Could have had some great jokes embedded in it, like having him bitch that agent X neuralized him after cheating at poker for example. The lack of thinking in the writing gives the movie the feel that it is a quick cash in for a buck and that is it.
Papa Legba come and open the gate
You've obviously single and without child. The reason guys fear relationships so damn much is because they're a pain in the ass. At first, you think "Why argue ? Lessfuck!", and then it becomes "I'll tell her how I felt, and she will understand and apologize", a couple years later you say out loud "Get off my back, you whiney ungrateful whore" and finally you realize "My life is over. Pass the K-Y, my soul's about to get violated again". And then you have a child so you can forget about Ms Evil and concentrate on a new, pure, untainted human being devoid of cruelty.
And then you get to laugh because he/she is now experiencing the same hell you went through, then someone gets pissed and sends you off to some crusty retirement home with an old lady that always steals your soup crackers.
And then...
-Billco, Fnarg.com
of people pining and moaning about how bad movies are. Get over it. If you go to a movie like this expect very little and hope for the most. Do that and You just might get more than you expected making the movie a better experiance all around. I figured MIB2 was going to suck, but I was happy to see a decent funny movie.
if you want "No More Hiroshimas" then I say "You First. No More Pearl Harbors."
I swear, you people are self destructing yourselves so that you can't enjoy the $7 spent on watching a movie.
So far, I've read a lot of comments like 'unoriginal' or 'repackaged' or 'sucked' or whatever.
Blah blah blah.
You guys are kinda missing the point to watching a movie. The idea isn't to get exposed to some killer plot, the idea is to have fun. That means: Don't take it too seriously. MiiB is not part 2 of an epic trilogy. It's a comedy, it's meant to entertain for about 90 minutes or so. And it does do that. But, if you sit there being all critical about it the whole time, you're ruining it for yourself. Blame the movie if you want, but remember that's your $7.50 you're burning up.
The first problem I see is that it's being horribly overanalyzed. One guy went on to say "they shouldn't have written out the chick at the end of MiB, bad bad bad.". Err okay. So you didn't like the movie because it didn't extend the first one by 90 minutes.
Another guy went on to say '...another Wil Smith pop-corn action movie.' Can you say 'oversimplified'? Put it like that, and anything can sound stupid. 'Slashdot is like another Wil Smith pop-corn action movie'. See my point?
You can't possibly enjoy a movie if you sit there and pretend you can make it better. (you can't. All you can do is 'fix' the problems you see with it.) Instead, just sit down, watch it, have fun. MiiB is meant to be silly. It's not meant to be epic, it's meant to be fun. Smile.
If it's not your type of movie, don't go see it. Don't bug us about it either. We clear?
I liked the opening, I liked the middle, and I liked the end (mostly). When I went in to this movie I wasn't expecting to see anything deep... just fun. And it was fun as hell. Frank "singing" along with "Who let the dogs out" was a riot. I don't care about plot in these movies, just entertainment. And it delivered full measure on that judging from the reaction of the audience at my showing. For those of you reading these reviews go see it and judge for yourself. At least you'll keep cool in the a/c.
No one ever had to evacuate a city because the solar panels broke!