Susan Granger’s review of “Men in Black II” (Columbia Pictures)
It’s been four years since agents Jay (Will Smith) and Kay (Tommy Lee Jones) teamed up as intrepid detectives monitoring alien activity for a secret society for the protection of Earth. With his memories erased, or ‘neuralized,’ Agent Kay, is now postmaster of Truro, Massachusetts, where “Just about everybody who works in the post office is an alien.” Lonely Agent Jay, who has ‘neuralized’ his last eight partners, has turned to a civilian, pizza parlor waitress Laura Vasquez (Rosario Dawson), for companionship when he is told by MIB chief Zed (Rip Torn) to retrieve Agent Kay. Hidden deep in his former partner’s brain is an important clue that can save the planet from its new enemy: Serleena (Lara Flynn Boyle), a slimy, shape-shifting Kylothian monster who takes the form of a slinky Victoria’s Secret model. Working with a two-headed, half-witted accomplice (Johnny Knoxville), she firewalls and flushes Agents Jay and Kay while taking over MIB’s New York headquarters in her search for the ominous Light of Zartha. It’s all ho-hum routine except for Frank, the brazen, sarcastic Pug, once just an informer but now promoted to Agent F. This cigar-smoking pooch gets the most laughs, along with alien pawnshop owner (Tony Shaloub) and the obnoxious Worm Guys. Martha Stewart pops up on TV and Michael Jackson does a cameo as wannabe Agent M, a hopeful in the alien affirmative action program. Screenwriters Robert Gordon and Barry Fanaro, director Barry Sonnenfeld, production designer Bo Welsh and creature creator Rick Baker simply recycle what succeeded before. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Men in Black II” is a short, sardonic 6, a slapstick diversion dedicated to eliminating more extra-terrestrial scum. Frankly, I expected more.
