You Did Not Read This Review.
Written: Jul 05 '02 (Updated Jul 05 '02)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Aliens, Effects, some decent jokes.
Cons: The length, the length, the length....
The Bottom Line: It's fast, It's funny, It's got goop and slime, and if that's all you want, MIB2 should satisfy you.
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| billmanchego's Full Review: Men in Black 2 |
Preamble on engineering and Will Smith:
First off, I'd like to say that I am a fan of Will Smith. Not a huge one, but I'd be lying if I said I've ever seen him turn in a bad performance. Now, he has been in some bad movies(Wild Wild West jumps to mind.), but the man always does his best with what he gets, and he does have a gift for comic timing.
Now, a couple years ago, I took a brief course on Chemical Engineering, and as a part of it, a visited Canada's National Research Council, where they were developing some new sweetener. We were asked to try it. It was nice, really sweet, but the taste was gone almost instantly. That day, we were also asked to submit ideas for the name of this stuff. I now know what that stuff should be called.
Men In Black 2.
End Of Preamble.
It's rare that a movie comes along that is total fluff, cotton candy, something that makes you smile, and evaporates immediately after like a wisp of perfume. MIB2 is one of those movies. It's good fun, and over before you know it, leaving you remembering very little, but generally content.
Yes, this film is short. VERY short. With a runtime of only about 81 minutes once the credits start rolling, I was kinda disappointed. Not because the film was bad, but because I realized they could have added another 40 minutes and added more aliens, action, and dare I say it, a plot.
It's also very concise. Despite the length, this movie does tell a full story start to finish, tying up most of its loose ends(more on that later), and keeping the action moving at a good clip. Barry Sonnenfeld does a great job of telling a good story in a short time, but he doesn't use the time he frees up being concise to add more, just to get the folks in the audience home sooner.
This time around, Agent J(Will Smith), top secret member of the Men In Black, an organization protecting the Earth from the scum of the universe, is on the job with his new partner T(Patrick Warburton in a mediocre performance at best). When aliens start killing one another in NYC, it is discovered that a nasty Kyrathian alien by the name of Serleena(Lara Flynn Boyle, more on her later too.) has come to Earth in search of an ancient artifact known as the Light Of Xartha, which serves some weird mystical purpose. To complicate things further, the only one who knows how to find the Light is a hard-line member of the US Postal Service. Thus, J, and his new partner Frank the Dog(returning in a much bigger role than his cameo in Pt. 1) must go forth and get this man who can save the world with what he knew.
If you haven't guessed by this point that said postal worker is former Agent K(Tommy Lee Jones), you certainly haven't seen previews, trailers, or the original, and after we learn that most of the USPS is comprised of aliens(including Biz Markie in a great cameo), K sets out with J to relearn what he has unlearned, and save the world.
It's fairly conventional villians chasing the heroes chasing the artifact fare from there, but Smith and Jones keep it afloat with their great comic chemistry, some solid action sequences, and the help of Rosario Dawson, just effective enough as the murder witness and J's love interest.
Now as I said, the casting of this movie is pretty good. One notable exception is Lara Flynn Boyle. It isn't that she does a bad job of playing the femme fatale. Her acting and scheming is just right for the film. The problem is her physical appearance. A femme fatale, simply put, should not be waifish. Ever. They try to work around it with a couple decent maneuvers, including a joke ripped from her SNL appearance and the over-emphasis of her cleavage. But the fact is, she is just too thin for the role. They really should have tried to pick someone more voluptuous. Ali Landry, Nicole Kidman, Famke Janssen, any of them would have looked the part better than Boyle. But alas, this is a minor gripe.
A more major one is Johnny Knoxville. What happens to him halfway through this film is a mystery. For the first half he's Serleena's underling, then, he just.... stopped showing up for filming, I guess. He has no screen time and he isn't even mentioned. Again, this leads back to my primary gripe with the film-The short runtime.
Now, the visual effects and makeup by Rick Baker are absolutely fantastic. The aliens created this time around go even farther out there into the imagination than before, and if Baker doesn't win an Oscar for his makeup work.... The compositing and raw CG work is great, depicting planet after planet getting destroyed in the film's first five minutes, and then throwing in a solid aerial chase sequence for good measure at the end. J is mostly seamless in his fights with CG baddies, better than Star Wars but still not up to par with say... Minority Report.
The script is functional. It's nothing spectacular, a few good jokes, some real-ish dialogue, about what you'd expect from something like this.
There are a lot of surprises in the movie I haven't even touched on... mentioning them would ruin a lot of the fun. Let's just say there's more than what you get in the trailer here.
I, as a general rule, like long movies. If something tells an awesome story over 3 and a half hours with awesome and frequent action sequences, I'm as happy as a clam. MIB2 is this kind of movie's antithesis. As I mentioned. It's only 81 minutes long. But I did get to see a great CG short (AHHHH!! It's the Chubb Chubbs!) for my 10 clams, and I walked out happy. And I think that's the most you can really ask from a film like this. Just don't expect to remember much of it in a week.
Oh Yeah, and those Kyrathians really know how to make portable firepower. Consider Serleena's ship is about 10 inches long, and what it does.... whoa.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
billmanchego
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Member: Bill Manchego
Location: Woodlawn, ON
Reviews written: 22
Trusted by: 2 members
About Me:
Life is what happens between planning things out, and watching said plans go to hell.
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