Men In Black 2
Review
by : Kyle
DuVall
Starring:
Will Smith, Lara Flyn Boyle, Tommy Lee Jones,
Johnny Knoxville
Directed by: Barry Sonnenfeld
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Men
In Black was a fun movie because it simultaneously parodied
and celebrated our belief that the mundane world is a place
where great cosmic wonders lurk just beneath the surface,
just waiting to be discovered. MIB was also a classic New
York movie. The Manhattan of Men in Black's filmic universe
was a place where turning the right corner or knocking on
the right door could bring you face to face with the secrets
of the galaxy, and Tommy Lee Jones' agent K and Will Smith's
agent J were the perfect comedic pair to serve as both the
viewer's guide and surrogate in that world of aliens, giant
insects and cranky talking pugs.
There's
just as much to see in MIB 2, actually, there's probably more.
Unfortunately the film itself seem less enamored with it own
wonder and less generous with the unfolding of its mysteries
than those mysteries and wonders deserve. If MIB encouraged
you to step into its world and have a good look around, MIB
2, with its rushed pacing, inelegant exposition and general
lack of atmosphere and mystery plays like one of the film's
eponymous black-suited agents at an alien crash scene, setting
up a perimeter around the fantastic and telling the audience
to "move along…there's nothing to see here…"
The film's basic plot is a carbon copy of the first's. Alien
menace A., this time a voracious alien plant-thing named Serleena
(Lara Flynn Boyle), has come to earth looking for all-powerful
Macguffin B., an object called The Light of Zartha. When Serleena
overtakes MIB headquarters looking for the apocalyptic doohickey,
agent J must find the one man who may know where the Light
of Zartha is: agent K, his former mentor. K is now fully re-integrated
into civilian life and has no memories of his clandestine
past saving earth form the scum of the universe. J with the
help of alien second stringers Frank The pug and The Worm
guys must race to jog K's memory, find the Macguffin and save
the day before the Earth is destroyed.
An autopilot, chase the thingamajig plot is somewhat of a
letdown. Gather a roomful of sci-fi geeks and comic book nerds
in a room, and you could probably cook up a dozen or so premises
more interesting than this one; heck, watching a handful of
episodes of the sometimes inspired Men In Black animated series
would likely provide a plethora of concepts ripe for ripping
off. That the screenwriters didn't come up with a better premise
is disappointing but hardly damning, since the story, even
in the first film, really needs to serve as nothing more than
a solid foundation for wisecracks, set-piece gags and bizarre
aliens.
What really cripples the film is its completely arrhythmic,
rushed feel. MIB 2 whooshes along from wisecrack to wisecrack,
plot point to plot point like a blowgun dart fired by Dizzy
Gillespie. A brisk pace is admirable in a film like this to
a certain extent, but MIB 2 never gives its various gags and
visuals a worthy set up. MIB 2 is a comedy, and any first
time open mic night comedian will tell you, timing is everything.
MIB 2's various visual and character gags end up playing like
good jokes told by a second rate comedian. There's a constant
awareness that what's on-screen is really funny, yet, for
some reason, you're still not laughing, and then, whoosh,
its on to the next one-liner, wild alien or sight gag. In
a film that is only 87 minutes in length, one has to wonder
why director Barry Sonnenfeld and editors Richard Pearson
and Steven Weisberg felt such an urgent need to sacrifice
any sort of evocative rhythm in order to speed us to the conclusion.
20 seconds to build up a bit of tension here, 2 minutes to
introduce a plot element more fluidly there and not only would
we have a better, funnier film, but a longer one that wouldn't
have you being rushed out of your seat by an usher before
you've finished your popcorn.
The off rhythms are even more frustrating because there is
a lot of potential in the film's elements. For example, one
plot point involves Serleena busting a group of alien criminals
out of the detention center at MIB headquarters and sending
them after J and K. We get a good once over of some well-designed
alien scum and a cursory introduction to an imposing alien
with a special grudge against agent J. This all-star team
of alien scum ripe to get back at agents J and K is a really
fun comic-book style plot element. If MIB 2 might have taken
3, maybe four minutes to flesh out these alien baddies a little
bit and given them a bit of personality these characters could
have been classically cool and fun in an Empire Strikes Back
meets "Dick Tracy" kind of way and their eventual battle with
K and J might have been more interesting, something with more
life and excitement than merely the passable fight scene it
is in the film.
Other cool plot elements, like K's past experiences with Serleena
are just as hastily glossed over and the performances, an
element which elevated the first MIB film, are a hit and miss,
mostly miss, affair. Will Smith is always on the mark as J,
and the film gets decent comedic mileage out of J's personality,
one which is desperately grasping to maintain some sort of
cool at all times, even though J knows, even when he is at
his slickest, he is in hopelessly over his head. Likewise,
the screenplay flirts with some fun truths in K's character
that play against J quite nicely in concept. K, even when
he is neuralized with no memory of his past life as MIB's
best agent, seems cooler and more together than J. This element,
if pushed enough, could really have struck comedic sparks,
especially since J finds himself deferring to K even when
K has no idea what's going on. Unfortunately, the film only
plays with this relationship, throwing it out and letting
it wither on the surface. Even worse, Jones never seems to
know just how much his character is supposed to remember and
when, and K never seems to be in the full, hilarious deadpan
mode that propelled his character in the first film. Whether
this is because of vague screenwriting or laziness on the
part of Mr. Jones, I don't know. I don't really care either.
What matters is that K in MIB 2 is not very exciting or fun.
Serleena is also a pitifully underwritten villain. Edgar the
Bug from the first film was a broadly motivated megalomaniacal
alien menace just like Serleena, but Edgar had has quirks…the
stiff, hilarious way he walked in his "Edgar suit", his tendency
to fly off the handle whenever somebody squashed a bug…but
Serleena is played as a flat, uninspired mistress of destruction.
Granted, Lara Flynn Boyle in leather is a lot easier on the
eyes than Vincent D'onofrio in scroungy overalls, but despite
some flirting with a femme fatale personality, Serleena is
a dull and generic comic nemesis when compared to Edgar, even
if she does have a penchant for shooting tentacles through
people's bodily orifices.
MIB 2 is everything critics hate about blockbuster franchises
and high-concept sequels. It's not simply unambitious (an
aspect that actually added to the charm of the first film)
it's lazy and sloppy. The gags, the cool alien designs, and
the raw materials were there to build upon, but the construction
is, ultimately, shoddy. The Burger King Tie-in sandwich I
ate before the show was more stimulating than MIB 2…and probably
took more effort to make.
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