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Men in Black II

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Men in Black II
Film poster
Directed byBarry Sonnenfeld
Written byBarry Fanaro
Robert Gordon
(Screenplay)
Robert Gordon
(Story)
Lowell Cunningham
(Comic book)
Produced byWalter F. Parkes
Laurie MacDonald
Graham Place
(Co-Producer)
Steven Spielberg
Executive Producer
StarringWill Smith
Tommy Lee Jones
Lara Flynn Boyle
Johnny Knoxville
Rosario Dawson
Tony Shalhoub
and Rip Torn
CinematographyGreg Gardiner
Edited byRichard Pearson
Steven Weisberg
Music byDanny Elfman
Production
company
Distributed byColumbia Pictures
Release date
July 3, 2002 (2002-07-03)
Running time
88 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$140 million
Box office$441,818,803

Men in Black II is a 2002 sci-fi action comedy starring Tommy Lee Jones and Will Smith. 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, both of which are based on the Malibu comic book series The Men in Black by Lowell Cunningham.

Plot

Five years after the events of the earlier film, Agent K (Tommy Lee Jones) has assumed civilian life as a small town's postmaster while Agent J (Will Smith) continues to work for the Men in Black, the self-funded New York City-based agency that secretly monitors and regulates extraterrestrials' activity on Earth. J is largely without a partner, his former partner Agent L having returned to her former life as a deputy medical examiner and her successors having been expelled from the agency by J himself due to their unsuitability. While investigating a seemingly routine crime, J uncovers a diabolical plot by Serleena, a shapeshifting Kylothian queen who disguises herself as a model (Lara Flynn Boyle), but resembles a Lernean hydra in her own form. To stop her, J must convince K— who has no memory of his time spent with the agency, 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 a woman called Laura Vasquez (Rosario Dawson), a waitress at a SoHo pizzeria who witnesses Serleena's killing of the pizzeria's owner. 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 K, Serleena breaks into MIB resulting in a lockdown; J and K escape after being flushed from the building. J then takes K 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" but left himself a series of clues in case he needed to remember.

Ultimately, Laura's true identity is revealed as an extraterrestrial princess and power-source styled the "Light of Zartha". This revelation requires her to return to Zartha, her ancestral homeworld. Serleena, who has been seeking all along to find and possess the Light of Zartha, is killed just as Laura is transported away. Agent K is implied to have had a romantic attachment to Laura's mother Lauranna, after whom she is named, who was killed by Serleena twenty-five years before the film's story began. It is left unknown whether K is Laura's father. When Laura has gone, K and Agent Zed (the head of MIB) attempt to console J for his loss, only to have him answer that he needs no consolation, having accepted her departure without much sorrow. Since people all over New York City have witnessed these events, an emergency neuralyzer built into the Statue of Liberty is used to erase everyone's memory.

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 Terminal, 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 located in an enormous alien version of Grand Central Terminal contains the human world.

Cast

  • Will Smith as James Darrell Edwards III/Agent J: Still on active duty with the MIB, he is not satisfied with the partners assigned to him and keeps neuralyzing them.
  • Tommy Lee Jones as Kevin Brown/Agent K: A decommissioned senior MIB agent and the only person who knows (or knew) how to stop the latest threat to Earth's safety.
  • Rip Torn as Chief Zed: The head of the MIB.
  • Lara Flynn Boyle as Serleena: A shape-shifting alien who has come to Earth to find a vital power source used by her race's enemies. She serves as the main antagonist and villain of the film.
  • Johnny Knoxville as Scrad & Charlie: A humanoid alien (Scrad), with a second small head (Charlie) on a stalk protruding from his neck, who does Serleena's dirty work.
  • Rosario Dawson as Laura Vasquez: A young woman who turns out to be the power source sought by Serleena. She is also revealed to be the daughter of Zarthan Queen Laurana and Agent K.
  • Tony Shalhoub as Jack Jeebs: An alien pawn shop owner who uses a home-built machine to "deneuralyze" K and restore his memory.
  • Patrick Warburton as Agent T: Partnered with J, who neuralyzes him and throws him out of the MIB.
  • Jack Kehler as Ben
  • David Cross as Newton
  • Biz Markie as Beatboxing Alien
  • Tim Blaney as the voice of Frank the Pug
  • Nick Cannon as MIB Autopsy Agent
  • Michael Jackson as himself

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]

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]

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 films overall revenue coming from foreign territories.[13]

Sequel

Men in Black III-D will be the third installment of the film's franchise.[14] It will be released in 3D by Sony Pictures and directed by Barry Sonnenfeld, who directed the first two installments. The third was originally based on a script written by Tropic Thunder and Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa writer Etan Cohen. Sony confirmed that David Koepp would serve as an additional screenwriter, joining Cohen. Koepp is currently rewriting a new draft of the script, which takes place primarily in the year 1969.[15] It has been announced that Tommy Lee Jones and Will Smith would reprise their roles as Agents K and J., respectively.[16] Both had previously expressed interest in reprising their roles back in 2008.[17][18]

In the sequel, Agent J (Smith) travels back in time to 1969 (by using an iPhone) to prevent Boris from murdering Agent K (Jones). Josh Brolin will play the younger, '60s version of K, and a part was originally written for Clint Eastwood to play an alternate reality Agent K. Jemaine Clement will play Boris (formerly named Yaz), an evil biker villain who escapes from prison on the moon and seeks his revenge on the Men in Black.[19]

Production of the sequel is tentatively set to begin during the 2010 Fall season and will involve producers Walter F. Parkes and Laurie MacDonald. Steven Spielberg is also set to return as executive producer.[20]

A teaser trailer for the film was leaked online on June 11, 2010. It showed Will Smith dressed as Agent Jay wearing 3-D glasses and stating "I'm about to make 3-D look good."[21]

References

  1. ^ a b c Karger, Dave (February 5, 2007). "Aliens, Smith, And Jones (Page 2 of 6)". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved December 21, 2008.
  2. ^ a b Munson, Brad (2002). Inside Men in Black II. New York: Ballantine Books. p. 16. ISBN 0-345-45065-5.
  3. ^ Karger, Dave (February 5, 2007). "Aliens, Smith, And Jones (Page 4 of 6)". Entertainment Weekly. 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. Retrieved December 22, 2008.
  5. ^ a b Jackson, Blair (July 2, 2002). "Men In Black 2". Mix. Retrieved December 21, 2008.
  6. ^ "Men in Black II (2002)". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved September 1, 2009.
  7. ^ "Men in Black II Reviews". Metacritic. 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. Retrieved December 21, 2008.
  9. ^ Mahesh, Chitra (August 2, 2002). ""Men in Black-II"". The Hindu. Retrieved December 21, 2008.
  10. ^ Evans, Noell Wolfgreen. "Digital Media FX Review of Men In Black 2". Digital Media FX. Retrieved December 21, 2008.
  11. ^ "Movie Commentary: The Worm Guys made our list of best CG characters". Entertainment Weekly. August 26, 2002. Retrieved December 22, 2008.
  12. ^ a b c d "Men In Black II: 2002". BoxOfficeMoJo.com. Retrieved February 3, 2010.
  13. ^ a b c "Men In Black II". BoxOfficeMoJo.com. Retrieved February 3, 2010.
  14. ^ Peter Sciretta (April 1, 2010). "Sony Developing Men in Black 3 and Ghostbusters 3 for 2011". /Film. Retrieved April 20, 2010.
  15. ^ http://www.heatvisionblog.com/2010/05/men-in-black-3-release-date-3d-treament.html
  16. ^ Brendon Connelly (April 21, 2010). "Barry Sonnenfeld Confirms Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones For Men in Black 3D". /Film. Retrieved April 20, 2010.
  17. ^ Morris, Clint (September 30, 2008). "Are the Men in Black, Back?". Moviehole. Retrieved October 1, 2008.
  18. ^ Davis, Erik (April 1, 2009). "Sony Announces 'Men in Black 3'!". Cinematical. Retrieved April 1, 2009.
  19. ^ "Exclusive: Men in Black III Script Review". NewsinFilm.com. July 2, 2010. Retrieved July 7, 2010.
  20. ^ http://www.thewrap.com/article/men-black-iii-will-be-3d-when-it-opens-2012-17097
  21. ^ Marshall, Rick (June 6, 2010). "New 'Men In Black 3' Teaser: Will Smith Will Make 3-D Look Good, New Screenwriter Hired". Splash Page. MTV. Archived from the original on July 11, 2010. Retrieved July 11, 2010.
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