:: Captain's Personal Blog ::

Stardate: Wednesday, July 10, 2002

Men In Black II

Well, I saw MiB2 last night. It did not beat my expectations. It merely met them. As a film which had tremendous potential, it did not fail to go exactly no further than I expected. Yes, it had laughs, yes it had it's moments. However, it went exactly where I thought it would.

I know I keep saying that so allow me to clarify.

Going into the film, having seen the trailers, I believed that Barry Sonnenfeld and company had simply watched what was popular about the cartoon show (based on the film) and incorporated THOSE elements into the film. THIS WAS THE CASE. Is this wrong? Not necessarily. However, it would be better if instead of watching what made the cartoon successful, they had watched what made the FIRST FILM so successful. Where as the WORMS and FRANK THE PUG were minor players in the first film, they were major players in the Animated Series. As a result, they stole the film and were all over the place. The only pleasant surprise in this arena was that the Worms were not Coffee junkies as they were on the show. But Kay referring to Jay as "Slick" was right out of the show. LET ME CLARIFY HERE. There is a scene in the first film where Kay calls Jay "Slick." I am not picking knits and I am aware of that. However, in the sequel it seemed almost hackneyed. It was unnecessary. There was no reason for it. Continuing is the returning presence of Mr. Jack Jeebs. Why did Kay shoot Jeebs' head off in the first film? Partly as a bad-cop gesture, but more importantly to prove a point to Jay. When the show came on the air, Jeebs showed up even more often (despite Kay's warning in the film that he had better leave Earth,) and each time he appeared had his head blown off. As a result.....Jeebs had his head blown off in the film what seemed like a minimum of 3 times in a 5 minute timespan.

In addition to this, since the writers were so focused on the show, the film was written with the same depth. Much more attention was put to the comedy of the situation than the drama. The resolution to the film was indeed an emotional scene, and was played well by Tommy Lee Jones, Will Smith and Rosario Dawson. However, the more emotion heavy scenes earlier in the film with Tommy Lee Jones did not come close to holding the impact of the underplayed emotionalism displayed by his character in the first film for all of about 4 minutes cumulatively.

Continuing, with the comedy, at no point do you feel that these characters are in danger. Specifically because you don't believe that THEY believe that they are in danger. In the first film, Jay is constantly worried that the world is going to end (due mostly to his inexperience.) What really brings this to a head is that it seems towards the climax that both Kay and Zed are ALSO starting to believe it. There is a mounting tension in the film which appears to be lacking in it's sequel. Quite unfortunately so. This lack of tension leads to a lack of involvement which then leads the film to seem even shorter than the paltry 88 minutes of running time presented for our approval.

It would seem to me that roughly one million dollars for every four minutes of screentime for the two leads was excessive. While their performances were certainly up to the standards of the script, it would have been wiser for the producers to spend the money on better effects and a more involving story.

Finally, there is the epilogue of the story. I won't give it away here, lest anyone read this who has not yet seen the film. However, let me just say that it seems like a last minute add-on. It was not very well thought out and seemed like it was thrown together as a minor nod to the end of the first film. The end of the first film (and I mean the VERY VERY VERY end) was infinitely more clever and made much more sense. (While one would say that that last statement disqualifies me from being a Man in Black, I say maybe I just have standards.)

Sorry, this is the real finally. If it was the desire of the producers to make the film for a younger audience, I would say they may have succeeded. However, I think that everything has a place and the franchise should not be mired in the adolescent or even pre-pubescent. The greatness of the first film, as with any TRUE blockbuster, is that the story is good enough to rope in the Adults, it has the sensibilities to hit the adolescents (along with some nifty promotional tie-ins and merchandising) and it has enough eye candy (which can conveniently be turned into toys, coloring books, cartoons, and underwear) to keep the kiddies happy. This film had everything but the adult-gripping story. Ah well. I give it a B-.

:: J 8:36 AM [+] ::
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