Film Reviews

Men in Black 2

• Rating:
• Director:
• Starring: John Knoxville
• Details: US / 90 minutes / (12 PG).

Only a few months after his immaculate performance in Ali, Will Smith decides to give up on this acting lark and instead turns his attentions to making blockbusters again. In Men in Black II, he reprises his role as Agent Jay, one of the government's top secret operatives, whose job is it is to monitor and control the alien population on earth. His partner, the droll Agent Kay (Jones) has left the service and had his memory erased of any alien fighting hi-jinks, and Jay is finding it difficult to maintain his enthusiasm for work. Things get a lot more hectic on the professional front when an alien (disguised in the shapely curves of Lara Flynn-Boyle and her gravity-defying breasts) wages war on the planet. Thus, it's left up to Jay to find Kay, convince him of his past and do battle with the bad guys.
The five year delay between the original Men in Black and its lacklustre sequel certainly wasn't spent on laborious rewrites of the script, at least not on the evidence of what has made the final cut. Although it's not a terrible movie andndash; if you like this kind of thing, this is decent, if unremarkable, popcorn cinema andndash; there's an unmistakable feeling that any originality or comic invention has been pushed aside in favour of bigger explosions and bigger box office returns. Don't encourage them.

Review by Garreth Murphy