Men In Black 2 (2002)

2 out of 4

Starring: Will Smith, Tommy Lee Jones, Lara Flynn Boyle, Rosario Dawson, Rip Torn, Tony Shalhoub, Patrick Warburton

Directors: Barry Sonnenfeld

Time: 90 mins

The original Men In Black, released in 1997, was a delightful surprise - a rollercoaster ride filled with action, special effects, and plenty of laughs. It seemed like a sequel was a formality, but whatever the reasons, it's taken a full five years before the follow-up appears on our screens. Sadly, even given the re-teaming of Will Smith, Tommy Lee Jones, and director Barry Sonnenfeld, the sequel is a poor effort, with a lazy script, lacklustre performances, and few laughs. What has happened since that fun movie I saw five years ago?

Smith returns as Agent J, a former NYC police officer who was enlisted to join the Men In Black, a covert group who monitor and control the movement of space aliens into and out of Earth. When the serpent-like Serleena (Lara Flynn Boyle) lands on Earth looking for a precious artifact, and causing a lot of mayhem and destruction in the process, MIB head Z (Rip Torn) instructs J to bring back Kevin Brown (Jones), the former Agent K, who may hold the secret to Earth's survival. Unfortunately, K has been neuralysed (had his memory erased), and J not only has to contend with Serleena, but Kevin's scepticism, and the prospect of a love interest, Rita (Rosario Dawson), who witnessed one of Serleena's foul deeds.

The problem with MIB2 is not that there aren't any laughs - there are, but they were pretty much all shown in the trailers. The rest of the film is a tired retread of the original, with the roles of J and K switched. It's J who has to convince K of the existence of aliens and the Men in Black this time. The evil alien subplot is ho-hum, and the romantic angle is dreary. It says a lot about a sequel when Linda Fiorentino's character from the first film - whom I thought added a lot of spark and sizzle - is totally dispensed with in this instalment, and her absence is simply but lazily explained away. When even Tony Shalhoub's Jack Jeebs character can get a reprise, I expected a bit more effort regarding Linda's. To be sure, they may not have wanted her back, or perhaps she was too expensive. But whatever the reason, there should have been a better way to handle her absence.

The first film had some innovative special effects and action scenes that were a lot of fun, but here they seem dated. Save for a delirious NYC subway chase involving a large, all-consuming worm, nothing about the film excites the senses. That's a pity, for MIB was almost the quintessential summer rollercoaster, popcorn movie ride. I wasn't expecting MIB2 to repeat the thrills and spills, but it should have come a lot closer.

One of the major reasons behind the original's success was in the pairing of Jones and Smith, two of the most unlikely movie partners since Schwarzenegger and DeVito joined forces in Twins. Their oddball chemistry - a mixture of Smith's sass and street-smarts, contrasted with Jones's dead-pan cynicism and world-weariness - worked brilliantly. Here they're going through the motions, as if content to just show up and collect their cheques. Even K's touching back story, involving his reunion with a long-lost love, is totally disgarded, much like Fiorentino's character, in the name of sequelitis.

The remaining charcters are either bland or have little to do. Rip Torn is fun as Z, but the dog Frank (whose role is inappropriately large, given what he did in the first film) gets annoying after a while. Boyle hisses a lot, but is a fairly ineffective villain. Dawson is fetching but useless, and Warburton (The Dish) is wasted.

Sonnenfeld has crafted a disappointing follow-up to the energetic original. Not only is the story uninteresting, but pedestrian acting and a lack of regard for some characters means a potential insult to the core audience who loved the original. The film is not a total loss, but after five years, I expected something better.

(c) Joe Wong (12 August 2002)