Extras:
Alien Broadcast, Audio Commentary, Animated Short Film,
Alternate Ending, Blooper Reel, 15 Featurettes, Will Smith Music Video,
Multi-Angle Deconstruction, Theatrical One-Sheets.
Director:
Barry Sonnenfeld
Screenplay:
Robert Gordon and Barry Fanaro
Cast:
Agent Jay: Will Smith
Agent Kay: Tommy Lee Jones
Serleena: Lara Flynn Boyle
Scrad/Charlie: Johnny Knoxville
Laura Vazquez: Rosario Dawson
Zed: Rip Torn
Sequels, AKA: guaranteed money making machines.
With the exception of epics like Lord of the Rings,
Harry Potter
and even
Star Wars,
I'd say sequels are pretty much summed up that way. Rarely, VERY rarely do
sequels ever live up to its predecessors. Most of the time it's the bad
films that get sequels (like
American Pie
and others). And most of the time it's the summer hits.
Men in Black
was released in 1997, July 3rd to be exact. It was
exactly one year after Will Smith had herded the audiences to
Independence Day
and brought in over $300 million in this country
alone. 'MIB' was just as good, not better, but showed that Smith wasn't
just a new face but he could at least hold his own. The film was
actually pretty good, it was original at the time and had a smart quick
pace to it. So of course they would make a sequel after that huge hit
right? Mr. Jones and Mr. Smith held up the deal for awhile for money
issues and five years later we get this steaming pile of regurgitated
Hollywood vomit that gives sequels a bad name. Oh yes folks, it's THAT
bad.
I swear I think someone took the original MIB script and just switched
names around. This is pretty much the same story as the first. Let's
look at the following comparions. MIB: alien crash lands on Earth and
disguises himself in the suit of a human, MIB II: same thing (well this
time it's a lingerie model). MIB: alien proceeds to find key to the
universe on Earth, MIB II: same thing except it's now the Light of
Zartha.
Among that plot we have this time Agent Jay (Will Smith) working solo.
This is really the only half way interesting part of the film in where
we see that Jay has grown into his job and takes it quite seriously.
After going through partner after partner (they should have kept Patrick
Warburton ,Seinfeld's Putty and The Tick's Tick, in the film) he is
given the same assignment he had in 1997.
Now Smith has to play Tommy
Lee Jones' role from the first in that he has to recruit him. Kay had
his memory erased at the end of MIB (sorry to spoil it for you) so now
he is the only one who possesses knowledge of the location of the light.
Wait until you get to the ending and tell me that wasn't exactly from
the first film. In fact, that ending was so bad in the theater that I
forgot all about it.
Where the film really fails is the pace. Running at a seeminly brisk 87
minutes it feels much longer. The structure is so loose that a toothpick
could topple it at any given second. It doesn't help that every scene is
basically lifted from MIB. The evils of product placement are revealed:
BIG TIME. Watch for The Sprint Store and the Burger King which always
happen to be in frame. There's one scene where Serleena is eating a
whopper - doubt she would do that.
Then there's Sony Wega TVs in the basement of a pawn shop, the Playstation 2
controller that serves as an emergency steering wheel in the car. All this and
the terrible rehash that is MIB II make this a candidate for Turkey of the year.
Oh and that dog actually sings Who Let the Dogs Out. Silence hit that
theater like a tidal wave when I saw it.
Well the movie sure looks great though. Columbia Tristar has brought MIB
II home in an awesome transfer that really suprised me. Presented in
1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen. Blacks are very deep, colors are vivid and
sharp. Flesh tones look completely natural. Pixelization is nowhere to
be seen. Overall a very good transfer and may be the best from Columbia
yet.
The audio also brings the goods. Presented in Dolby Digital 5.1. Every
sound is rendered very well and dialouge never fades. In fact the
dialogue may be the best part of the audio as every tone is replicated
against the loud effects very well.
Columbia Tristar has given the two disc treatment to MIB II. After the
disaster that was 'Spider-Man' this was a pleasant suprise as the extras
are pretty decent. Here's how it stacks up:
Disc 1:
Audio Commentary: Barry Sonnenfeld gives some pretty good info on a
terrible movie. I wonder if he REALLY liked it or just does because he
was the director?
Alien Broadcast: Similar to The Matrix's follow the white rabbit
feature. An icon will pop up during the movie and clicking it will take
you to a short feaurette.
Frank's Favorites: Besides the teaser trailer and theatrical trailer
for MIB II there is a short animated film here. It is called the Chubb
Chubbs and is very recomended. It's CGI but features an Alien, Darth
Vader and Yoda playing chess, Robby the Robot, and a joke at Jar Jar
Binks. I'm puzzled as to why's it here but I'm glad it is. Trailers for
other Columbia films are here as well.
Disc 2:
Special Delivery: MIB Orb:
Select this feature to create your own featurette order. Each featurette is
presented in full frame and all together run 24 minutes. Decent.
Blooper Reel:
5 minutes and full frame with non-anamorphic clips. This
reel is actually funnier than the movie.
Serleena Animatic Sequence:
Series of CGI and animated storyboards for
the crash landing in the film. 2 minutes, full frame.
Multi-Angle Deconstructions:
5 scenes total. Switch between 5
different angles for each progression during a particular scene.
Alternate Ending:
Runs 2 minutes and is even worse than the real one.
Non-anamorphic 1.85:1 by the way.
Creature Featurettes:
7 total, non-anamorphic widescreen, each runs
around or over 2 minutes. Also includes 'Barry Sonnenfeld's
Intergalactic Guide to Comedy'. Runs 6 minutes, full frame.
Theatrical One-Sheets:
4 total. Real creative design, folks.
Music Video:
Will Smith's "Nod Ya Head", full frame, 4 minutes. Not as bad as you would think.
Filmographies:
Funny, they neglected to mention Rip Torn's part in 'Freddy Got Fingered'.
The extras are actually pretty good but there just isn't enough. Still
watachable though.
Packaging is amaray. The widescreen version sports a black backdrop and
makes it look cooler than the full frame's white. The cover is pretty
bad as Kay isn't really a member for a while. Disc art is pretty good
and the first disc sports good menus minus the annoying Twister style
chapter selection.
Overall the only good thing about this DVD is the video, audio, and the
extras. The film completely stinks up what could have been a good
addition to any library. Again Hollywood has churned out a mindless
sequel that the masses still payed money to see. I really hope there
isn't an MIB III five years from now.
DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TXW32R4 32" widescreen TV
connected to either a Creative Dxr2 DVD-ROM player or Microsoft Xbox and
played through a Sony STR-DB930 amplifier.
PC games reviewed by the editor are on:
Since Nov 2005: Intel Pentium D 830 3.0Ghz, 1Gb RAM, 128Mb nVidia GeForce 6700XL, Windows XP
Since Aug 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.66Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb GeForce4 MX440 graphics, Windows XP
Since May 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.6Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb ATI Radeon 9600TX graphics, Windows XP
Since Jun 2002: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, 64Mb ATI Radeon 8500LE
Since May 2000: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, Voodoo 3 3000 AGP
