Smith Month - Mini Review: Men in Black II

Let’s continue with the Men in Black series as we continue Smith Month

Men in Black II came out in 2002 and was met with a decent Box Office performance but a poor critical reception, which likely factored into the 3^rd movie not coming out until 10 years later. Why was the critical reception so poor, well here’s my take on it.

Men in Black II takes place 5 years after the first movie, J is a more seasoned agent but is having trouble maintaining a partner, which means that his concerns about the neuraliser giving you cancer have been brushed aside. Also means that the women I can’t remember the name of from the morgue last movie, yeah, she’s been neuralized and won’t be spoken of again.

Speaking of interesting bits of the last movie that are undone, K’s fiancé from that movie is gone, she left him. Good to see they respect the ending of the last movie so… Anyway, so when an alien named Sarleena (Lara Flynn Boyle) comes to earth seeking the Light of Zartha, an object related to K’s past, J must find K and bring him back up to speed so he can solve the mystery. And what does it have to a character played by Rosario Dawson that J is smitten for.

OK, so the good things, we maintain the great banter between J and K, it still is reasonably funny, it maintains the same great ideas the first one had, the acting is still good for the most part. It’s nice to J be a little less dumb and more assertive, and I think that balances quite nicely with K’s character, especially when he didn’t have his memories so it became a kinda role-reversal.

But Men in Black II is widely considered the worst movie in the Men in Black franchise and I can see why. There is nothing really new to this movie. The weapons are basically the same as in the last, there are few if any stand out aliens, some of the twists are basically rehashes of the ones in the first movie and it starts to bring things backwards by having K return and J basically start making stupid mistakes.

Then there’s the story and it’s not very good, let’s talk about the city of New York, there’s an opening set-piece involving a giant worm going through subway stations. They completely gloss over how they managed to neuralise everyone who saw it, bear in mind, most of the time in the first movie, the incidents were reasonably local so I could buy that they got to everyone. Here, it’s unlikely, really unlikely

I’m also not fond of Rosario Dawson’s character being a love interest, because it feels like too much of a retread of the first movie, sure, she has a more important role later on she spends most of the movie as J’s love interest. *sigh*

We also have an overabundance of comic relief characters. The illegal trader, he’s back, the dog has a substantial role, the main villain has a comic relief sidekick… I get the need for levity but the movie already aims for comedy so I don’t see the point of them here. And then we have the stupid neuraliser in the statue of Liberty. NO MOVIE, NO!

OK, let’s talk about some plot. After K gets his memory back (a little early in my opinion) he finds he’s neuralised the information that’s actually important. Wait, how does that work, he was deneuralised, that’s what the machine was supposed to do. Anyway, so he conveniently left himself a series of clues including a locker key in a locker in a pizza joint that in no way could’ve been moved over the god-knows how many years that pizza place was running.

Locker in airport home to a native race because of course it is and watch is controlling the Statue of Liberty. I don’t like these scavenger hunt narratives, they go out of their way to make it overly complicated and it mostly just wastes time.

Men in Black II is a dumb movie, but it still maintains a certain charm, making it impossible for me to completely hate

Rating 50/100