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Will Smith's new film, Men in Black II, represents the ultimate triumph of marketing over substance. The movie itself is a slight affair with none of the charm or creativity of the original. The story follows the formula and doesn't even try to add anything new. Unless you count a couple maudlin moments in which the characters feel sorry for themselves. The performances are phoned in--Tommy Lee Jones looks absolutely bored (and why wouldn't he?), and Will Smith has expended far more effort marketing the movie than he did in making it. But given the $90+ million it's made in just the first week, who can blame him. He knows how the game is played.

The original Men in Black is one of my all-time favorite big-budget flicks. The screenplay was clever and funny, and the production design exuded sci-fi cool. Jones and Smith had tremendous chemistry, and the supporting cast of Linda Fiorentino, Rip Torn, and Vincent D'Onofrio was fantastic. The movie was one of those rare blockbusters that could sell tickets on word-of-mouth alone.

Not so for the sequel. I could see some twelve-year-old boys recommending it to their friends, but everyone else is coming because of their fondness for the first one and the incessant, overwhelming marketing blitz the studio has created. I noticed that even the news networks were running half-hour infotainment commercials in which Will Smith talked about how much fun it was to work with Tommy Lee again. If only it was as much fun for us to watch it.

The movie begins with Will Smith paired up with a different partner (played by Patrick Warburton, "Seinfeld"). They're battling an alien who's living in the subway system but has overstepped his boundaries. If you've seen the commercials (and how could you not?), then you've seen this sequence. It's the one where Will Smith strides through a subway car as if he was the baddest man on the planet. Which of course he is. Unfortunately for him, the same cannot be said of his new partner, and soon Smith is dispatching Warburton with a neuralizer. That's the thing that wipes out people's memories so they can remain unaware of aliens on earth. Yeah, you remember--the flashy thing.

This isn't the first partner Will has fired. You see, he's pining for his old sidekick, Agent Kay (Jones). So the movie has to find a way to get the two back together. Enter a convoluted plot in which something in Jones's
past (played by Lara Flynn Boyle clad in Victoria Secret's underwear) has returned to haunt the earth. The Men in Black guys have to convince Kay to return and be de-neuralized (no, the plot's not contrived at all--no way, no how).

I was hoping that once Jones got out of his postal service uniform and put on the black suit that the movie would take a U-turn into fun. No such luck. The plot just continues through the motions, as do our heroes. Smith and Jones try to find a secret alien device, which involves interacting with various alien life forms (who are pretty cool, I must admit). A climactic battle with Boyle in a black bustier ends up being not so climactic, so we need a second ending involving redundant special effects. There's also a weepy scene where Will has to say good-bye to Rosario Dawson (Sidewalks of New York). Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you about her.

Unlike Linda Fiorentino's feisty performance in the original movie, Rosario Dawson functions merely as the Love Interest. It's a standard female role in a summer blockbuster, but its ubiquity can't eliminate the ugly sexism that oozes from its conventions. There's no attempt to develop her character. Rather, she's just supposed to get all dewy-eyed whenever Will Smith shows up. At least she doesn't have to parade around in lingerie like Lara Flynn Boyle. Baby, you've come a long way.

So if the men don't distinguish themselves and the women aren't allowed to, are there any characters worth mentioning? It's sad, but the best part about MIB II is the dog. Will Smith's sidekick until Tommy Lee shows up, the dog has more charisma than everyone else put together. He also gets the best lines and is a hit with all the kids in the audience. Indeed, it seems like a significant mis-step when the dog is shunted off to the sidelines. What must Will Smith be thinking? Letting himself be upstaged by a talking dog. Has he been reduced to Don Knotts? Nahh, he's just been reduced to picking up that paycheck.

Life forms everywhere will be happy to note that the third MIB installment is already in the works. "Studio chairman Amy Pascal said a second sequel was likely, although she doubted it would take another five years to put together." Let the marketing begin! Where's a neuralizer when you really need it? 

J. Robert Parks 7/11/2002

The freshness that was Men in Black has been replaced by recycled jokes and jokes so "in" they are in seclusion. How many people in the audience will know that telling Will Smith, in his black suit, that he looks as though he is sitting Shiva, for example, is funny? Due to open before July 4, 2002, Men in Black 2 even has a throw-away reference to lead actor Will Smith's infamous summer film, Independence Day, "I got to get me one of those." No thanks. 

The story is set five years from the ending of the previous film. The opening is clever with Peter Graves narrating a TV docudrama show with cheesy clips even showing the guide wires of an attempted space alien invasion. Enter Will Smith, moving partner to partner (his latest is Patrick Warburton) and missing his mentor, Tommy Lee Jones. Rip Torn is still the head of this secret organization with an odd assortment of characters that look like Star Wars cantina extras. Trouble looms in the Medusa-snake form of Lara Flynn Boyle who wants a certain "light" (never fully explained) that may or may not destroy Earth (never fully explained). Her Joan Crawford-imitating way is so obnoxious that Smith seeks out his old partner, now a postal employee on the East Coast, de-neuralizes him by bringing back his memories and goes after Boyle. A vague love interest is provided by pizza clerk Rosario Dawson who was something space alien Boyle wants.

The film doesn't come to life until fully a third of the way through when Smith and Jones finally team up. Their familiar banter starts but even then, his Agent Smith is calm. Even his supposedly harrowing moments are unenthusiastic. There are more familiar faces. The worm guys are on their own and free to help Smith. The pug dog is also included, but his appearances wear thin after thirty seconds. The audience can just take so much banter about a dog imitating a human. Boyle, as the villainess who could have had a slashingly good time, walks through her role like a starched doll. The only two who have a natural way with their characters are Rosario Dawson as the girl who accepts working with aliens in a pizza shop as just another part of her day and the computer-generated giant worm who lives in the subway system. He/she/it has personality. 

Director Barry Sonnenfeld works with fairly good special effects such as racing a car through a tunnel, the giant worm chasing a subway train, Lara Flynn Boyle unleashing her tentacles time after time, and a guy with two heads. But the stale script lets the actors down and they know it. I got tired watching them and the film is under ninety minutes. Will there be a Men in Black 3? Probably. On another Fourth of July? Probably. Yawn.

Copyright 2002 Marie Asner 7/19/2002