Men in Black II (2002) Review

"What is a Game Boy?!"

-Agent K

Serleena (Lara Flynn Boyle), a shape-shifting alien, arrives on Earth looking for the Light of Zartha, which has the ability to destroy planets.  Agent J (Will Smith) realizes that the only being that knows where the Light is happens to be retired Agent K (Tommy Lee Jones).  With very little time before the Earth is destroyed, J has to find K, restore his memories, and stop Serleeena from getting the Light.

What Works:

I hated this movie, so this section will be brief.  I liked the opening of the film which gives us the background plot in the form of an old TV-show hosted by Peter Graves.  It's a clever way to deliver exposition.  I also liked the role reversal of Will Smith recruiting Tommy Lee Jones into the Men in Black.  Finally, there is one very funny moment where K inadvertently destroys a minuscule civilization.  It's a quick joke, but I cracked up.

What Sucks:

This movie attempts to be more comedic than the original and it almost never works.  Pretty much every character acts as comic relief.  That's no way to make a movie like this.  I leveled the same criticism at 2018's The Predator.  You can't have every character act as comic relief.  It becomes extremely annoying, especially when the jokes aren't even good.  I spent most of the film groaning in misery.

This sequel also gives a bunch of minor characters from the previous film expanded roles, which we didn't need at all.  Frank the Pug (Tim Blaney), Jeebs (Tony Shalhoub), and the worms were all fine characters to have in one or two scenes, but they all get way too much screen time in this movie and it's extremely aggravating.

The CGI is absolutely awful and painful to watch.  Somehow the original Men in Black had better CGI than this one.  The original also had way more practical effects and the lack of those this time around is a bummer.

Sarleena is a much weaker villain than the Bug.  I wish this movie had used Lara Flynn Boyle in the same manner she was used in Wayne's World.  She doesn't work as a destructive threat with a stoic personality.  Make her weird.  It would have been much more memorable.

Her henchmen are pretty godawful.  She recruits a bunch of prisoners of MiB to her cause.  This could have been a lot of fun with a bunch of weird characters, but most of them are extremely dull and are quickly taken out of the film.  Worst of them all is a two-headed guy played Johnny Knoxville.  He's obnoxious, unfunny, and the CGI is abysmal.  Every time he shows up on screen, I wanted to turn the TV off.

Finally, it irritated me that Agent T (Patrick Warburton) even made it into the Men in Black.  We saw the tests J had to take in the last movie.  T is portrayed as a blunt idiot, there is no way he passed the tests.

Verdict:

I really hated Men in Black II and find it an insult to the original film. The story, comedy, characters, villain, and effects all suck.  I laughed at one joke and enjoyed exactly two other moments in the whole film.  This was actually miserable to sit through and I'm thinking about setting my DVD of the movie on fire.

 2/10: Awful