Men in Black II

Men in Black II
Men in Black II

Film poster
Directed by Barry Sonnenfeld
Produced by Walter F. Parkes
Laurie MacDonald
Graham Place
Steven Spielberg
Screenplay by Barry Fanaro
Robert Gordon
Story by Robert Gordon
Based on The Men in Black by
Lowell Cunningham
Starring Tommy Lee Jones
Will Smith
Lara Flynn Boyle
Johnny Knoxville
Rosario Dawson
Tony Shalhoub
Patrick Warburton
Jack Kehler
Rip Torn
Music by Danny Elfman
Cinematography Greg Gardiner
Editing by Richard Pearson
Steven Weisberg
Studio Amblin Entertainment
MacDonald/Parkes Productions
Distributed by Columbia Pictures
Release date(s) July 3, 2002 (2002-07-03)
Running time 88 minutes
Country United States
Language English
Budget $140 million
Box office $441,818,803

Men in Black II is a 2002 science fiction action comedy starring Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones. The film also stars Lara Flynn Boyle, Johnny Knoxville, Rosario Dawson and Rip Torn. The film is a sequel to the 1997 film Men in Black, and is followed by Men in Black III, all of which are based on the Malibu comic book series The Men in Black by Lowell Cunningham.

Contents

Plot

Five years after the events of Men in Black, Agent K (Tommy Lee Jones) has assumed civilian life as Kevin Brown, a postmaster of the small town of Truro, Massachusetts, and Agent J (Will Smith) continues to work for the MiB, the self-funded New York City-based agency that secretly monitors and regulates extraterrestrials' activity on Earth. J is largely without a partner, as his former partner Agent L has returned to her former life as a deputy medical examiner Dr. Laurel Weaver (played by Linda Fiorentino in the original MIB movie) and her successors had been expelled from the agency by J due to their unsuitability. Most recent is T (Patrick Warburton), an ex-Marine who wept prior to being neuralyzed. While investigating a seemingly routine crime, J uncovers a diabolical plot by Serleena, a shapeshifting Kylothian queen who disguises herself as a lingerie model (Lara Flynn Boyle), but resembles a plant-like hydra in her own form. To stop her, J must convince Brown (who has no memory of his time spent with the MIB since J neuralyzed him in the previous movie, but is the only person alive who knows what is needed to defeat Serleena) to reunite with the MIB before Earth is destroyed.

A large part of the plot centers on Agent J's relationship with Laura Vasquez (Rosario Dawson), a waitress at a SoHo pizzeria who witnesses Serleena trying to interrogate her boss about the location of the "Light of Zartha" before killing him. Rather than erase her memory according to MIB rules, J allows her to retain it. As Laura becomes increasingly involved in the battle between Serleena and the MIB, she comes to view Agent J as her protector, while he simultaneously falls in love with her. While J tries to deneuralyze Brown, Serleena breaks into MIB resulting in a lock down; J and Brown escape after being flushed from the building. J then takes Brown to Jack Jeebs (Tony Shalhoub), who built an unofficial deneuralyzer. Although K eventually regains his memory, he reveals that he still has no recollection of the "Light of Zartha" (he neuralyzed himself) but left himself a series of clues in case he needed to remember. After piecing together the clues, K finally remembers his past with Serleena: 25 years ago, the Zarthan Queen Laurana arrives on Earth to try and hide the Light of Zartha, but the MIB refuses to help due to their neutrality. Serleena arrives to steal the Light, but K activates the Zarthan ship and sends it away. Serleena, believing the Light is on board the ship, chases the said ship, but not before fatally shooting Laurana. K then reveals that the ship was a decoy, and that the Light is still hidden on Earth.

Meanwhile, Serleena frees all of the MIB's high-security prisoners and uses them as henchmen. Believing that the Light is in Laura's bracelet, Serleena kidnaps Laura and prepares to send her back to her homeworld. J and K assault MIB headquarters, defeat Serleena's henchmen, and rescue Laura. However, K warns them that if the Light is not taken off Earth and returned to Zartha, it will explode and destroy the planet. As they make their way to the departure point, Serleena gives chase but is eaten by Jeff, a giant worm whom J has a history with, living in the New York subway system. When they reach the departure point, K reveals that Laura is Laurana's (and possibly K's) daughter and the actual Light of Zartha. To save Earth and Zartha, Laura reluctantly leaves Earth, much to J's dismay. Serleena returns to try and capture Laura again, but J and K manage to destroy her for good. To cover up the chaos caused by Serleena's rampage, K activates a giant neuralyzer hidden in the Statue of Liberty's torch. Now that Laura is gone, K and Agent Zed (the head of MIB) try to console J for his loss, but he answers that he needs no consolation and had accepted her departure without much sorrow.

Two other plot threads relate the interaction of J with Frank the Pug (an extraterrestrial refugee posing as a pug dog, who becomes J's partner early in the film) and the revelation that K keeps a race of minuscule extraterrestrials inside a storage locker at Grand Central Station, the locker encasing their whole world. At the end of the film, K kicks open a forbidden door to reveal that a much larger locker in an enormous alien version of Grand Central Terminal seems to contain the human world.

Cast

Production

Despite some initial involvement from David Koepp (who left to work on Spider-Man),[1] the script was written by Robert Gordon and later revised by Barry Fanaro (who added pop culture references, something which Gordon had deliberately avoided).[2] Sonnenfeld took issue with the producers' focus on the love story between Will Smith's and Rosario Dawson's characters, saying that "I learned on Wild Wild West that audiences didn't want to see Will as the straight man. And until Tommy comes back into the movie, by definition Will's the straight man."[1] Fanaro condensed the first part of the film and brought Agent K in earlier.[1] The climax of the film was originally to have taken place at New York City's World Trade Center. However, this had to be changed following the destruction of the buildings in the September 11 attacks.[3] The day after September 11, a spokesperson for the studio said that the ending would be refilmed.[4]

Supervising sound editor Skip Lievsay used a Synclavier to recreate and improve the original recording of the neuralyzer sound effect from the first film (which was the sound of a strobe flash as it recycles) by removing some distortion.[5] For some of the scenes with the Serleena creature, the sound crew "took tree branches, put them inside a rubber membrane and pushed that around and added some water."[5] For the special effects scene where the subway train is attacked by Jeff the Worm, a specially designed vice was used to crush a subway car and make it look as if it had been bitten in half.[2]

Sequel

Men in Black III is currently scheduled for release on May 25, 2012.

Release

Critical reception

The film received mixed reviews, gaining a 38% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and a Metacritic score of 50.[6][7] A. O. Scott of The New York Times said that, "Within the trivial, ingratiating scope of its ambition, though, the sequel is pleasant enough," and, noting the huge array of aliens designed by Rick Baker, said that the film "really belongs to Mr. Baker."[8] A review in The Hindu called the film "worth viewing once."[9] Another review from Digital Media FX magazine praised the spaceships as looking very realistic, but criticized many of the simpler visual effects such as the moving backgrounds composited behind the car windows using blue-screen (which it called a throwback to the special effects of earlier decades).[10] In August 2002, Entertainment Weekly placed the Worm Guys among their list of the best CG characters, and said that the enlarged roles of both Frank the Pug and the Worm Guys in Men in Black II was beneficial for the "tiring franchise".[11] The film earned a Razzie Award nomination for Lara Flynn Boyle as Worst Supporting Actress.

Box office

Men In Black II was a commercial success, although not to the extent of the original. Released theatrically on July 3, 2002, Men In Black II charted at number one in its opening weekend at the box office with the revenue of $52,148,751. The film held onto the number one two the following week the revenue of $24,410,311, a 53.2% decrease from its opening weekend.[12] In the film's third week of release, it saw a 40.4% decrease with the revenue of $14,552,335, charting at number three.[12] After one month the film remained in the box office chart, at fourth place, with the revenue of $8,477,202.[12] Men In Black II fell out of the top-ten at the box office chart in its sixth week of release.[12] After sixty two days of release in North America, Men In Black II grossed $190,418,803.[13] 43.1% of the film's worldwide revenue of $441,818,803 came from North America.[13] Internationally, Men in Black was commercially successful; the film to date has grossed an estimated $251,400,000, with 56.9% of the film's overall revenue coming from foreign territories.[13]

References

  1. ^ a b c Karger, Dave (February 5, 2007). "Aliens, Smith, And Jones (Page 2 of 6)". Entertainment Weekly. http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,305154_2,00.html. Retrieved December 21, 2008. 
  2. ^ a b Munson, Brad (2002). Inside Men in Black II. New York: Ballantine Books. pp. 16. ISBN 0-345-45065-5. 
  3. ^ Karger, Dave (February 5, 2007). "Aliens, Smith, And Jones (Page 4 of 6)". Entertainment Weekly. http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,305154_4,00.html. Retrieved December 21, 2008. 
  4. ^ "Digital Media FX News Archives: Men In Black 2 Ending to be Refilmed After Disaster". Digital Media FX. September 14, 2001. http://www.digitalmediafx.com/News2001/September/091401.html. Retrieved December 22, 2008. 
  5. ^ a b Jackson, Blair (July 2, 2002). "Men In Black 2". Mix. http://mixonline.com/sound4picture/film_tv/audio_men_black/. Retrieved December 21, 2008. 
  6. ^ "Men in Black II (2002)". Rotten Tomatoes. http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/men_in_black_ii/. Retrieved September 1, 2009. 
  7. ^ "Men in Black II Reviews". Metacritic. http://www.metacritic.com/video/titles/meninblackii. Retrieved September 1, 2009. 
  8. ^ Scott, A.O. (July 3, 2002). "Men in Black II (2002) FILM REVIEW; Defending Earth, With Worms and a Talking Pug". The New York Times. http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?_r=1&res=9A06E4D61731F930A35754C0A9649C8B63. Retrieved December 21, 2008. 
  9. ^ Mahesh, Chitra (August 2, 2002). ""Men in Black-II"". The Hindu. http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/fr/2002/08/02/stories/2002080200760200.htm. Retrieved December 21, 2008. 
  10. ^ Evans, Noell Wolfgreen. "Digital Media FX Review of Men In Black 2". Digital Media FX. http://www.digitalmediafx.com/reviews/meninblack2.html. Retrieved December 21, 2008. 
  11. ^ "Movie Commentary: The Worm Guys made our list of best CG characters". Entertainment Weekly. August 26, 2002. http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,344227,00.html. Retrieved December 22, 2008. 
  12. ^ a b c d "Men In Black II: 2002". BoxOfficeMoJo.com. http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?page=weekend&id=meninblack2.htm. Retrieved February 3, 2010. 
  13. ^ a b c "Men In Black II". BoxOfficeMoJo.com. http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=meninblack2.htm. Retrieved February 3, 2010. 

External links

v · d · eMen in Black
Comic books
The Men in Black (1990–1997)
Films
Men in Black (1997) · Men in Black II (2002) · Men in Black III (2012)
Television
Music
Video game
Men in Black: The Game (1997) · Men in Black - The Series: Crashdown (2001) · Men in Black II: Alien Escape (2002)
Characters
J · K · Frank the Pug
Related topics
v · d · eFilms directed by Barry Sonnenfeld
1990s
The Addams Family (1991)  • For Love or Money (1993)  • Addams Family Values (1993)  • Get Shorty (1995)  • Men in Black (1997)  • Wild Wild West (1999)
2000s
Big Trouble (2002)  • Men in Black II (2002)  • RV (2006)
2010s

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