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Men in Black II (Superbit Collection)

Men in Black II (Superbit Collection)

List Price: $26.95
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Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Sad.
Review: There is something nearly endearing in the public's and studios' readiness to succumb to the sequelitis. It's not only pure commercialism and a cynical quest for extra megabucks on the studios' side or the viewers' urge for more of the same good stuff - even if it's very likely to turn out not as good as it was. What moves me is this joint effort to defy and deny the very concept of finality, unwillingness to say: - Yeah, it was fun while it lasted - let's remember it fondly for what it was. -

I remember the excitement and awe that met the initial MIB in the summer of 1997, lots of magazine covers with these two dressed-as-undertakers guys in black neutralizer-proof sunglasses, ready to blast the misbehaving alien visitors and residents to the green goo condition. The concept, the design - in was so fresh, so overwhelmingly new and convincingly detailed, not an imitation nor it seemed imitable.

It seems that very freshness of the original made the second helping just barely chewable.

Was it the director's fault? Or screenwriters' fault? Or actors'?

Surely it was a way downhill for Barry Sonnenfeld after his great success of '97: the planned-as-hilarious but ultimately disappointing Wild Wild West, the other film which name I can't remember - the revisiting of his greatest hit seemed the thing to do. Could he be more inventive? More selective when it came to jokes? More restrained when deciding how many and what kind of monsters this movie needs? Not craving for cheap laughs so much, able to throw in a basket the guy's with the balls under his chin sketch?

Will Smith is not as cocky and bristling as he was, he is surrounded by the surprisingly incompetent colleagues whose acts and appearance make you think the MIB's personnel department was eliminated by one of these successful alien raids and now the McDonalds sends them the recruits they consider underqualified to serve the Golden Arches.

Tommy Lee Jones looks resurrected, he is very tired - first of and above all, not happy to participate.

Earthly Linda Fiorentino is replaced with Lara Flynn Boyle, the female Michael Jackson with ridiculously pushed up mammae - I could feel how they hurt from the strain.

It all looks like the once happy TV family is paid handsomely to reunite in the recreated settings to live in front of cameras, to tell the old jokes and try to invent the new ones to the viewers' satisfaction, to endear the audience once more but the resulting show is very strained, unconvincing - and it's so painfully evident.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Soooooooooooooooooooo disappointed
Review: What a huge let down, this movie was HORRIBLE. I was expecting so much more than what I got, the first Men in Black movie is still the best, and that's a DAMN shame. Even Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones's chemistry is bad, they used it wrong. As a matter of fact they didn't use it at all. There was so many ways Men in Black II could have topped the first one, with the right story and good comedy. MIIB is one of the worst sequels of all time. If there's someone out there who hasn't seen this movie and is reading this review right now, listen to me, don't be noisy, it's garbage, you work to hard to waste your money on [poo], you wanna see a great sequel this summer? Go see Attack of the Clones again, and don't go near the Men in Wack!

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Men in Black Strike Again
Review: Those mysterious men in black return to save the world once again, this time from a slimy, slithery blob played by sexy Lara Flynn Boyle. The comic timing was brilliant, and the effects impressive, despite a pretty dumb storyline and some repetition from the first movie. Overall, mindless but fun summer entertainment.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Second verse, same as the first!
Review: Here's a waste of an overinflated movie admission for you.

There's nothing startling in the fact that 90% of the scenes in this movie were a rehash of the most popular scenes from the original I guess, that's why critics commonly lament sequels. Never before has this been so apparent, though. You'll find yourself asking who could have possibly been responsible for the screenplay, a writer or a test audience from the first film. As David Spade would have put it in a Hollywood Minute, I liked this film the first time I saw it...when it was Men in Black I.

To sum up- thin plot, thinner characters, one or two scenes that will make you smirk just like they did the first time around. Skip it in theaters, rent it at Blockbuster.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: A stretch to be "video worthy" for your money...
Review: Any sequel bears a heavy burden to match up against its older brother but MIBII turns out to be more of a "red-headed stepchild". It must take one of the records for shortest movie of all time (or nearly so)...at 1 hour and 17 minutes (I timed it, a bit of a compulsive habit I have) it had the effect of making it feel like I had set there for 2 and a half hours...not because it was good, it was just that uninteresting.

I was hoping for a bit more originality in plots rather than finding out yet again, the plot device that everyone was searching for was a charm-size object attached to something.

The movie seemed so disjointed, almost as if the director and editor didn't bother to show up to the final cut. The movie didn't "snap" like the first one, probably because of the lack of flow.

It is sad as well when Johnny Knoxville's character is more interesting and funny than either of the main characters.

I was entertained enough by the effects, but left with a sour taste in my mouth. I was very disappointed in not being able to come the next day and tell my friends what a good movie it was...rather I had to say not to set your expectations higher than what you would expect from a low-budget, uninteresting thriller starred by has-been actors...thats what this movie felt like.

One can only hope that a MIBIII might be that bright sibling we had hopee to see in this movie.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: One of the worst
Review: Don't waste your money on this totally boring and stupid movie.
There is not story, plot, comedy, and absolutely not any fun in this dumb movie.
The first MIB was a little bit original, but this sequel is a total disaster---one of the most boring movies I've ever seen!

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: "Once You try Worm, That's All You'll Yearn!"
Review: Men In Black II reunites Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones as the black-suited dudes who ploice alien activity on Earth. If you've seen the first, you know pretty much what to expect from this one: Weird alien (Lara Flynn Boyle this time) threatens the Earth, MIB's need to find the strange object that can save us. The plot is just an excuse to hit the audience with weird images and frantic jokes, and for the most part, the film works. The heroes are great, especially Jones, at his deadpan best. The worms from MIB I are back, and they even get in on the final battle this time. We also meet the newest MIB, Frank, a talking Pug Dog, who steals every scene he's in. The effects are generally good, except for Johnny (Jackass) Knoxville's extra head, which looked truly phony.

Problems? Well, the film suffers from the dreaded "traileritis", where every funny moment has been shown already in the trailer and TV commercials, so the best parts are ruined. The film is REALLY short; so short that they tacked a cartoon onto the film. (The cartoon, "Here come the Chub-Chubs!!" is funnier than MIB II...)

If you enjoyed MIB, you'll probably like MIB II....

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Deja vu anyone?
Review: I loathed with a passion the original MIB the first time I saw it. However MIB was on television the day before I went to see the sequel (what a fortuitous coincidence that it was on) and I didn't mind it quite as much this time. I have been wondering if my standards are slipping lately - this might be proof. I still think the first film only had one funny line (put down your weapon/you'll get my gun from my cold dead hands/your terms are acceptable - yoink!) and is an ordinary film

The story this time around is that the latest alien menace Serleena has come to Earth in search of some powerful world-destroying object of indeterminate nature called "The Light of Zartha". Taking the form of a model in an advertisement (since when did Lara Flynn Boyle start moonlighting from "The Practice" as a Victoria's Secret model?), she then takes over MIB headquarters with ridiculous ease (you'd think they'd protect themselves from the possibility just a bit better) in order to find out where the Light is. She finds out only one person might know. This turns out to be former agent K, now working in a post office. So the race is on for agent J to find him and restore his memory before Serleena gets him.

The film was OK but this is more a shot by shot remake of the first film than a sequel. To surmise: Veteran agent's current partner is not working out any more after failing to deal with misbehaving alien in the introductory scenes due to incompetence. So, he has to be neuralyzed. An alien comes to Earth looking for powerful small object and takes a human form to hide a much larger and uglier alien shape. Aliens living in New York City disguised as humans are tortured and killed for information. Civilian outsider gets involved by chance. A new partner has to be recruited who is initially bewildered at the world he's been thrust into that exists out of sight to the man on the street. A time deadline to find the object before the Earth is destroyed - again.

There are some slight differences including a weird video introduced by Peter Graves that sets up the plot at the start of the film. This time it's agent J as the veteran agent and K as the new recruit (until he gets his memory back). Tommy Lee Jones does a good job as a bewildered man whose life has been tipped on his head and trying very hard not to show it. I'm still waiting for an explanation as to how bad J's life must have been to give up all his friends and family so readily. That would be a story worth telling.

There are a few instances where J tries to reverse what K did to him as a newcomer in the first film (giving him the smallest gun available etc) and trying to use the same lines that K did to J in this first film on him but continually getting them wrong is slightly funny. J is shown by the film's end that he has a way to go to replicate K's decades of experience on the job as well as his trademark deadpan quips. However, the film doesn't really explore the possibility of playing a scene similar to MIB but suddenly changing it a lot to really surprise the audience. A couple of lines of dialogue clear up continuity as to what happened to agent L and the complication of K being married. Linda Fiorentino is sadly missed.

Lara Flynn Boyle takes the role of Serleena after Famke Janssen was forced to leave production. She's an excellent choice as the sight of her as ice queen Helen Gamble in "The Practice" still scares me. Admittedly she's scarier in that show than here. Unfortunately, she doesn't get to do much. I do prefer her to Vincent D'Onforio's steadily decomposing Frankenstein lurching farmer Edgar though. However, she ultimately proves ridiculously easy to vanquish. Rosario Dawson is introduced as a possible love interest for agent J but is totally surplus to requirements. She gets nothing to do. Patrick Warbuton is barely used and there's a totally pointless cameo by Michael Jackson (well maybe not to him). There's more of the worms and Frank the dog. I didn't think that was a plus. Rip Torn makes up the numbers going through the motions as Zed, the MIB chief and probably wishing someone would blank from his memory his participation in Freddy got Fingered.

The so-called "twist" ending has nothing set up to lead up to it, so it comes across as more random than clever. It totally failed to register a response with the audience I saw it with. Buffy the Vampire Slayer did a similar thing recently, as did countless other examples in the past. The film ends with a shot that shows everything is always part of something bigger but it seemed to me to be done in a way that flatly contradicts the ending of the first film.

The director has a cameo as the father of the family in K's old house. Some of the special effects team play postal workers. Scenes showing the finale in the World Trade Center were changed but you can briefly see a road sign to the WTC in one shot.

Should you see this film? It all depends on how much you liked the first film. Some reviewers have said it's a pale imitation of the first film. That's unfair, it's just an imitation - no better or worse and quickly forgotten after leaving the cinema (It does a good job of neuralyzing its own audience). It does have the dubious distinction of failing to bring a single distinct new idea to any part of the film at any point in time compared to its predecessor. Which is a shame as it's truly a wasted opportunity to have done something different.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: If you enjoyed the original, you will want to see this!
Review: Sequels usually lose a little something in terms of novelty, and a bit of repetition can hardly be avoided (The unfortunate "Star Wars" saga sadly comes to mind). Men In Black II suffers a little from this problem -- but this is a very minor quibble -- and then we get to all the reasons why the film is a great success....
Barry Sonnenfield and crew move into this second installment in a rather seamless and satisfying manner. Tommy Lee Jones and Will Smith are fun and funny and the two females perform quite ably, bringing a sort of balance in the acting roles.
A good sequel needs a well-developed plot and this film provides just that (in contrast to, say, "Phantom Menace"). One has a sense that some very creative minds lent their talents to the development of the story.
On the order of "There's Something About Mary," the comedy in Men In Black II is extremely well done. I have rarely laughed out loud so much during a movie.
By all means see the original first, if you are one of the few who haven't seen it already. And then...fasten your seatbelt for this one.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: weak story but great chemistry
Review: It's that time of year again. The sun is high in the sky beaming that heat down, the grills are going full blast cooking the hotdogs and hamburgers, the fireworks are just about to go off, and Will Smith has a movie out for the 4th of July. This time it is a sequel to that surprise hit, Men In Black.
The story finds Will as Agent Jay, the top agent for the MIB, constantly searching for a replacement for Agent Kay, Tommy Lee Jones, who he had to neuralyze at the end of the previous movie. Unfortunately Jay is beginning to get a reputation as someone who will use his "flashy-thing" at the first problem and most of the other personal at MIB are scared of him. Even worse an extremely dangerous alien by the name of Serleena, Lara Flynn Boyle, has traveled to earth searching for the Light of Zartha. Naturally if she gets she will be able to rule the universe. Even worse than we previously thought, the only person who knows where this Light of Zartha is, is Agent Kay who, since his neuralyzation, has been working as the postmaster of a small town.
Jay is sent to retrieve Kay, de-neuralyze him so that he will get his memory back, find the Light of Zartha, and defeat Serleena. Not bad for a 90 minute movie.
OK. This is MIB ll. You obviously aren't coming in to see this for serious drama. You probably aren't coming to see this for serious character development either. You probably are coming because you are a fan of light action/comedies and are a fan of Will Smith and/or Tommy Lee Jones. With that groundrule stated, does this movie work? Yes.
The plot is basically superfluous to the movie. It seems hastily thrown together and comes across more as the plot for an ongoing television series (sequel anyone?) than for a major motion picture. What moves this along is the acting of the two leads and the relationship between them.
I have often said that there is a great lack of chemistry in many romantic movies out there today. That doesn't apply here at all. Smith and Jones work perfectly together. The chemistry that flows between the two is easy and established quite well. Smith, as Jay, is the gung-ho top guy at MIB until he brings Kay back and then he easily slips right back into the student role. Smith is the perfect class clown for this role but he needs a foil and Jones provides Kay with the perfect deadpan that frequently comes across funnier than the joker.
Is this the best movie ever made? Not particularly. Did I find it entertaining? Yes. The two actors work well together and carry the movie to a satisfying end.


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