Plot Details: This opinion reveals major details about the movie's plot.

NOTE: This covers the MIB movie, the Chubbchubbs short, and the DVD (extras and such) with the plot spoilers section clearly marked.

Most Men In Black fans tend to find the second movie tolerable at most. I find it slightly better than just tolerable but far from an exceptional movie. What makes it positive is that I laughed harder at this one. Frank the pug and the Worms are hysterical - I could watch an entire move about them. I’m not alone in that, either. Many of the negative reviews I’ve read still praise Frank.

There’s also some tremendous comedy with J & K (Smith & Jones) though they don’t quite have the chemistry of the first movie. There are several other high points as well ranging from low-brow, crude jokes to subtle, more sophisticated humor.

Some reviewers have expressed distaste with Johnny Knoxville as Scrad/Charlie, but I think he plays off the goofy, cowardly, slimy characteristics perfectly.
I can’t complain about anybody else at all. Rip Torn does a perfect reprisal of Zed, Rosario is absolutely adorable, and Tony, though I don’t like his new grungy look as much, is possibly the funniest humanoid in the whole thing. There are a few good cameos, also, the best of which is Michael Jackson (only because Zed can’t stand him).

The experience starts to fall apart with the villain. Laura Boyle could have been better. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve seen much worse, but she doesn’t own her role like Vincent did from #1 – she’s just not scary. Nor is she as attractive as the role tried to make her.

Some of the special effects lack. I think the whole thing was so overly ambitious that the massive amounts of effects they had didn’t come off as well as they should have. I wouldn’t say that it’s all so bad that it just completely sucks, but Scrad/Charlie looks cartoony a lot, Serleena’s finger worms don’t always flow naturally, and other images follow that trend. On the flip side, however, Frank’s mouth movements and a lot of the aliens look totally realistic, and the new car looks great.

A sore spot for me is the wire fighting. Zed jumps up and does a Liu Kang style kick, K jumps and lowers slowly to the floor (fighting the ballchinian). I can allow for all the aliens and technology beyond our capabilities, but the MIB agents are still human and should therefore follow the laws of physics as we know them. I don’t know about you, but those wire shots tend to pull me from the world of imagination and scream, “See? It’s just a movie!” It would be different if this were a Mel Brooks parody movie or set in the surrealistic Matrix where laws of physics don’t apply.

Everything that isn’t perfect could have been overlooked (except maybe the wire fighting) if not for one blazingly negative point: the plot stinks like skunk biscuits. Well, the entire story isn’t awful, but the ending, at least, is bad enough to kill the whole thing.


Brief plot rundown: A villain from MIB’s past has come back looking for something, the Light of Zartha. Only K knows enough about the situation to provide an advantage for the home team. The problem is he’s been neuralized and reinstated into society. J takes Frank as his new partner and goes on hunt for K. Will K regain his memories in time to save the planet?

**SPOILER**

If they had expanded on Laura being the light of Zartha, maybe that could have worked, but they just send her off to be the saviour of a planet without her having any knowledge of her race or what’s going on with them – very hard to swallow. Is she going to just show up and -poof- everything is fine? Maybe that would be acceptable if she had exhibited some unusual prowess against Serleena, but, no, she’s just kind of helpless while J & K fight the battle. It rains when she cries. OK, great, and just how is that supposed to be a tactical advantage in a space war?

And what about the past confrontation with K deciding to hide the light (Laura) on Earth? What do you do with an alien infant? Who raised her? If K didn’t trust himself with the knowledge of who she is, who could he trust enough to watch her? I’m guessing Ben kept an eye on her, but there’s no indication of him being her foster father. That all raises the question of was she an infant when she was left behind? We don’t really know how old she was/is. How did Serleena know Laura was going to be of any importance when she grew up? Making Laura the light was just a bad plot idea in so many ways. I can think of several better endings just off the top of my head.

Add to that the insinuation that K may be her father and it makes even less sense. That would mean that the Light didn’t exist before Laura’s mother arrived on Earth, yet she came to Earth because she was fleeing Serleena who was in pursuit because she wanted the Light which she couldn’t be chasing if it didn’t exist.

And while I’m at it, the locker epilogue is stupid. If we’re inside a locker then there has to be an end to the world (it would be effectively flat), and right there at MIB HQ apparently. The marble idea from #1 was easier to imagine because the edges of the universe were in distant space, but the physics of the locker mean that the edge would pass through the Earth’s core and everyone should hit a wall. Kind of like () with a line down the middle, (|). Imagine an apple cut in half and laid on a counter. I don’t know if I’m explaining what’s in my head to your understanding, just know that I can’t make the idea work in my mind.

And what about Scrad & Charlie? Did they just decide to hang out with Jeebs from now on? They just kind of disappear into oblivion.

**END PLOT SPOILERS**

The original MIB plot wasn’t Shakespeare or anything, but at least it was solid. The flimsy plot of #2 makes every other weak point that much worse, and, no, nothing on the DVD clears it up. Sonnenfeld himself, in the commentary, sounds cynical about it like he thinks it sucks, too but couldn’t do anything about it because of the producers. There are some other negative points I could mention, but I’ve given them enough grief – I’ll just wrap up this portion.

So if you’re a big MIB fan or want a good laugh, go rent it, but be prepared to scratch your head in confusion at the end. I’m glad I went ahead and bought the DVD, but I don’t recommend paying purchase price before seeing it first without careful consideration.

Review 2: The Chubbchubbs
Part of the reason I’m glad I went ahead and got the MIB2 DVD is because of one of the special features: one of the best short animated films I’ve ever seen. I think the Chubbchubbs is available on its own DVD if you really do not want to get MIB2, but it’s worth at least renting the movie just for this. Besides the side-splitting comedy, the animation is quite impressive. There’s a taste of eye candy for fans of Star Wars, Lost In Space, Aliens, and other such sci-fi icons.

I am amongst the vast majority of movie-going patrons that say this toon is better than the feature presentation it accompanies. As I said, it’s worth a rental just to see this. Nobody I’ve shown this to (and that has been most everybody I know) has disliked it, even the ones that don’t like Sci-Fi or most cartoons.

Content:
The mature content in MIB2 is a bit less than the first in some respects and more in others. The bad language is less. There’s nothing particularly violent – at least I can’t recall any human deaths. There is some sexuality, though. Serleena walks around in her underwear and makes comments about her breasts. There’s a quick joke or 2 about sexual positions that younger kids won’t even get most likely, and a gag involving male anatomy. It’s probably OK for most teens, but I recommend that sensitive parents check it out first.

The Chubbchubbs is suitable for children. There’s some implied, comical violence but nothing else even questionable.

The DVD
While the DVD, like the movie, falls short of its predecessor, it’s still pretty good stuff. There are 3 versions I’m aware of: the widescreen and pan & scan versions of the one I’m discussing here and a superbit with enhanced picture quality but no (or at least very few) extras. I don’t know if The Chubbchubbs changes in format like the movie since I’ve only actually seen the widescreen release. It would suck in pan & scan anyway.

The audio is a nice 5.1 and the picture quality is great. Though I love the black box of the MIB Limited Edition, the cover art for MIB2 is sharp and the case is durable plastic.

The menus (especially on disc 1) are pretty creative featuring animation, music, sound effects, and character voices. Disc 1 tours around the Worms’ pad. For example, when you select audio options the screen takes you to the stereo in the room. The hot tub is my favorite. Changing selections on the main menu requires a little more attention than most because the options aren’t lined up making it easy to highlight something other than what you intended.
The disc 2 menu isn’t as creative but still features some nice animation and visuals.

So you want to know about the extras? The commentary with Barry is pretty good. He rambles and repeats himself sometimes, but there’s a lot of good info. He also gets to draw on the screen which is something more commentaries should allow. If you had technical trouble with the graphics on the first MIB commentary, give this one a shot anyway; the technology is improved. I didn’t have a bit of trouble.

Another feature is the Alien Broadcast. As you’re watching the movie an icon appears from time to time. When you select the icon a behind-the-scenes clip will play formatted to look like a news broadcast with scrolling alien text and such. I wouldn’t bother with this. All the clips are taken from disc 2 features and are much better as their own entities. It’s not worth sitting through the whole movie watching and waiting for that icon to appear.

There are a couple of MIB2 trailers, one for the MIB1 DVD, the MIB video game, and some for a few other movies.

And now for page 2.
9 of the behind the scenes clips are included on an orb. You generate a play list of any number of these clips in any order, hit play, and watch the ones you’ve selected. It’s an interesting concept, but for a total of 9 short clips it’s not practical. There’s also a long credits sequence at the end -- if you watch 1 clip it’s at the end of it, if you watch all 9 clips it’s at the very end. So I recommend watching the clips in groups as large as you have time for so you don’t have to deal with the credits so much.

Not all the behind the scenes clips are included on the orb and some of the ones on the orb are included in other spots throughout the menus. The orb does have some neat animation and even includes a help page.

I count 14 behind the scenes clips in all (not counting the multiple appearances of some) including several on individual creatures, one on Danny Elfman (which I loved since I’m a huge Elfman fan), Barry Sonnenfeld, Rick Baker, foley artists, and one I haven’t seen enough of on other DVD’s: voice over recording. The variety of subjects keeps them from being boring and there are often some very nice visuals particularly on the Rick Baker segment.

There’s a long clip of various outtakes that is probably the funniest thing on the whole release with the possible exception of the Chubbchubbs. It features many of the alternate names for the ballchinian, some great goof-ups, and the problem with autopilots.

There are 5 special effects deconstructions though 2 are of the same scene just split into 2 parts. Similar to the feature with the first movie, the scene plays, and you swap angles to see the various layers of the scenes with the final angle being the finished product. Each one has 2-5 angles and range from about a minute to a couple. I miss the narration that the first release had for its feature, and some of these go by so quickly you need to watch them a few times to really see all the angles.

There is an animatic for Serleena’s first scene, but it’s really not much more than an animated storyboard with 1 or 2 CG shots.

I was surprised that there weren’t many deleted scenes. In fact, there’s only 1, an alternate ending. In some ways I actually like it better than what is used; it’s definitely worth a watch.

There’s a poster gallery that has some good images but only about 5 of them.

Then there’s a filmographies list. There’s no biographical info and the list of movies is not complete in most cases, but if you’re interested 12 members of the cast and crew are included.

One of the most anticipated features would have the be the Will Smith music video of “Black Suits Comin.’” I’m going to compare it to its predecessor; I hope that doesn’t bug you. I like the music better than “Men In Black” but the lyrics aren’t as witty for the most part. The video itself is quite exceptional with stunning images, outstanding editing, special effects that rival anything in the movie itself, and lots of familiar faces.

Now for the DVD-ROM stuff. I’m not very impressed. To access most of the special features you have to play a little game first. You must navigate a ship to various planets and other vessels, dock with them, download the information, and only then can you view them. I don’t mind the idea of flying the ship around if they want to put that in, but let me access the features without having to go through a lot of rigamarow. Anyway, once you unlock everything most of what you get is picture galleries. Oh, yeah, docking with planets gives you a little info about the alien species that live there. The next features listed are the ones unlocked here.

There are 10 galleries including concepts for creatures, weapons, places, various technology, and vehicles. The Jeff, Ben, and Jarithia galleries also include short animatics.

There is also a special effects breakdown for Frank and a behind the scenes clip for the locker world.

The other features don’t require planet navigation. They are the standard web links, a screensaver (you need internet access), the screenplay, and DVD-ROM help.

The last feature is a Crossfire game demo. You play Agent U running around shooting aliens. I wasn’t very impressed with gameplay or graphics, but if you want to shoot a few aliens using a carbonizer than install this thing and go. Basically you walk though MIB HQ (including Zed’s office and customs) looking for hostiles. I never could get used to the movement controls, but it’s just a demo so I won’t go into a lot of detail.

There are supposed to be some Easter Eggs, but 2 are just part of the alien broadcast accessed by secret methods (not worth searching for), and the third is either not on my disc, only a hoax, or accessed in a different way than what I’ve been told. Either way I can’t verify its existence so I’m not going to list it.

That’s about all I can tell you. You can easily go through all the extras in a rental period. Save the Chubbchubbs for second so if you think the movie stinks the cartoon can lessen your disappointment. I do recommend a rental; I don’t recommend a purchase unless you’re sure you want the extras or have already decided you like the movie. MIB2 gets 3 stars, Chubbchubbs gets 5. DVD design and content actually deserves a 4 since it’s a little above average (maybe a 3.5). I would give this an overall 3.5* if I could and might have rounded it up except that I just can’t bring myself to put it on the same level as other 4*’s that I’ve listed.


Recommended: Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Good for Groups
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older