Men in Black II (Widescreen Special Edition)
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Average customer review:Product Description
Agent Jay must call agent Kay out of retirement in order to help rid the earth of a Kylothian monster who is threatening humanity.
Genre: Science Fiction
Rating: PG13
Release Date: 5-AUG-2003
Media Type: DVD
Product Details
- Amazon Sales Rank: #13829 in DVD
- Brand: SMITH,WILL
- Released on: 2002-11-26
- Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
- Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
- Formats: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, Special Edition, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
- Original language: English, French
- Subtitled in: English, French
- Number of discs: 2
- Dimensions: .34 pounds
- Running time: 88 minutes
Customer Reviews
K Follows J (but Not For Long)
With tongue planted so firmly in cheek as to be in danger of serious injury, Barry Sonnenfeld set out to surpass his own 5 year old triumph with Men in Black II. He didn't quite clear the mark set by MiB, but he came much closer than I ever thought he could.
Clearly, the goal of the MiB2 cast and crew was to expand the best elements of the first movie and lose those bits which didn't work so well. They had a great idea and implemented it well, but I think that they may have gone just a tad too far in paring the story and script down. MiB2 is a great ride, from the first frame to the last, and rarely have I seen 90 minutes go by so quickly. A little too quickly, as it turned out.
This flick is even more densely packed with one-liners, droll humor, visual puns and delightfully cynical satire than the first. It opens with a segment from a no-budget TV series on strange and unexplained phenomena (hosted by Peter Graves, of course) describing how the Earth narrowly escaped destruction in 1978 when we were caught between Serleena, a powerful and evil alien, and the object of her desire, a mysterious force known as the Light of Zartha. At that critical juncture 25 years ago, a super-secret government agency (which licenses and polices alien activity on Earth) kept us out of the line of fire by refusing the Zarthans' request to hide the Light on Earth.
Cut to the present day and Serleena's back. Naturally. She's still looking for the Light of Zartha and she's severely POed that she hasn't found it yet. Arriving on Earth undetected, her first problem is the same faced by the galactic cockroach in MiB: find a disguise that will pass among the primitve humans. As a shape shifting nest of snake-like apendages, though, she had an easier time of it than the 20 foot Bug. Almost immediately, she comes accros a magazine open to a full page Victoria's Secret ad and before you can say "brand new Edgar suit", she's taken the form of Lara Flynn Boyle . . . in nothing more than Victoria's best black lingerie. This is one dangerous alien.
Actually, Boyle does a good job of filling Vincent D'Onofrio's shoes. She's a smarter (if less ghastly) villain than the Bug and before long has put J and K at a serious disadvantage by completely taking over MiB headquarters.
Ah yes, Jay and Kay. Let's face it: the real key to the success of Men in Black was the hillarious juxtaposition of Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones. Well, Kay is back and the chemistry has lost very little zing in the 5 years it was on the shelf. it turns out that the erstwhile Agent K is the only human being who might possibly know how to find the Light of Zartha. Unfortunatly, he's still got a 35 year gap in his memory and is working as the Postmaster of a small town in Maine. Zed dispatches J to bring him back and get him de-neuralized, post haste.
I won't give away any more of the plot than this; it's thin enough as it stands and I wouldn't want to spoil what few surprises there are. Fortunatly, the movie isn't really about the plot, now is it? it's about the gags, the special effects and watching Smith and Jones have *way* too much fun. Several other characters from the first flick also return, including Tony Shalhoub as the occaisionaly headless pawnbroker Jeebs, the four ungrateful worm guys and the wisecracking, karaoke singing pug, Frank.
Go see it, it's a hoot. The humor is a bit more juvenile than in the first movie, perhaps, but it really doesn't suffer much for all of that.
The MIB return to kick more alien tail
I really enjoyed Men in Black. I thought the relationship between J & K (Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones) was wonderful. Tommy plays a wonderful straight man to Smith's zaniness.
I went to see Men in Black II last week, and I found that it fit like a thoroughly used, but still kind of comfortable glove. It's nowhere near as good as the first one, and it suffers from recycling too many of the jokes as well. The talking dog returns in a much more prominent role, the worms are back as well and have more to do. While funny (listening to the dog sing Gloria Gaynor is hilarious), ultimately they don't work as well in expanded roles. It feels almost like running the joke into the ground. A much more successful return is the ever-wonderful Tony Shalhoub as Jeebs. He's in for one scene, but he's still great.
Lara Flynn Boyle completely fails, in my opinion, as Serleena. First, she doesn't play menacing very well. Secondly, she doesn't seem to handle the wry humour and the quips that a villain in a picture like this requires. She comes across as very flat. Thankfully, Rip Torn is wonderful, and Jones and Smith slip into their comfortable roles very easily. They really make the movie.
The film is very short (88 minutes), which also tends to make it seem rushed. The characters jump from place to place without much reason. When reason is given, it's usually very quickly so as to move the plot along to the next set piece.
It was a funny film. No doubt about that. It was worth the [money] that I paid for it. Just don't go in expecting something as good as the first one.
A mediocre sequel to clever movie...
Seriously, are we supposed to put this movie the same class as the first one? This was a very Disney-like attempt to make money from a sequel.
Aside from a few clever one liners, a hilarious cameo by Michael Jackson, and the fact that Laura Flynn is very pleasing to the eye in Victoria Secret apparrel, this movie was really 'disapointing'
"But what about the scene stealing dog?" you say, ok the dog was funny in some points, mainly riding in the car. Ultimately I would say that if you laughed at the trailer, thats as much fun as you're gonna have.
A more appropriate title for this would've been "Burger King, Nokia, and Mercedes Benz present MIB 2!!" because its really a big commercial. It didn't exactly help that there were some very obvious 'product' shots thrown in which really get annoying after a while.
On the postive side, the team up of Jones and Smith is still funny, but ultimately you get the feeling of 'I've seen all this before.' To those who haven't seen it, I would say 'see it, if its a rental that someone else is paying for because they ran out of copies of something you would want to see, like oh I don't know: Episode II.





