Men in Black II

Men in Black II
Film poster
Directed by	Barry Sonnenfeld
Produced by	Walter F. Parkes Laurie MacDonald Graham Place (co-producer) Steven Spielberg (executive)
Screenplay by	Barry Fanaro Robert Gordon
Story by	Robert Gordon
Based on	The Men in Black by Lowell Cunningham
Starring	Will Smith Tommy Lee Jones Lara Flynn Boyle Johnny Knoxville Rosario Dawson Tony Shalhoub Patrick Warburton 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 (stylized MIIB) 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, Tony Shalhoub, Patrick Warburton and Rip Torn. The film is a sequel to the 1997 film Men in Black and is based on the Malibu / Marvel comic book series The Men in Black by Lowell Cunningham.

Plot

Five years after the events of Men in Black, the neuralyzed Agent K (Tommy Lee Jones) has assumed civilian life as Kevin Brown, postmaster of a small town in Massachusetts, and Agent J (Will Smith) is now the top operative for the MIB, the self-funded New York City-based agency that secretly monitors and regulates extraterrestrials' activity on Earth. Jay is largely without a partner, after Agent L (from the first film) decided to return to her former life and subsequent partners have not lived up to Jay's professional standards. While investigating a seemingly routine crime at a SoHo pizzeria, Jay 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, Jay must convince Kevin to rejoin MIB, because he is the only operative still alive who knows how to find Serleena wants, the "Light of Zartha".

While Jay tries to deneuralyze Kevin, Serleena breaks into MIB resulting in a lock down; Jay and Kevin escape after being flushed from the building. Jay then takes Kevin to Jack Jeebs (Tony Shalhoub), who built an unofficial deneuralyzer. Although Kay eventually regains some of his memory, 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. The clues eventually lead to a videostore where they watch a tape that jars Kay's memory: 25 years ago, the Zarthan Queen Laurana arrived on Earth to try to hide the Light of Zartha, but the MIB refused to help due to their neutrality. Serleena arrived to steal the Light, but Kay activated the Zarthan ship and sent it away. Serleena, believing the Light is on board the ship, chased the ship, but not before fatally shooting Laurana. Kay 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 the bracelet worn by Laura Vasquez (Rosario Dawson), a waitress at the pizzeria, Serleena kidnaps Laura and prepares to send her back to her homeworld. Kay and Jay assault MIB headquarters, defeat Serleena's henchmen, and rescue Laura. However, Kay 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 alien worm living in the New York subway system. When they reach the departure point, Kay reveals that Laura is Laurana's daughter and the actual Light of Zartha. To save Earth and Zartha, Laura reluctantly leaves Earth, much to Jay's dismay, as he had developed feelings for her. Serleena returns to try to capture Laura again, but Kay and Jay 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, Kay and Agent Zed (the head of MIB) try to console Jay for his loss, but he answers that he needs no consolation and had accepted her departure without much sorrow. To provide a measure of comfort, K puts the aliens found in a Grand Central Terminal locker, as one of the clues, in Jay's locker. After Jay suggests, showing them that their world is bigger than a locker, Kay shows him and Frank through a door, that they, are in fact an alien species themselves, kept in a locker in an alien station, suggesting to his rookie worldview.

Cast

• Will Smith as Agent J
• Tommy Lee Jones as Kevin Brown / Agent K
• Rip Torn as Chief Zed
• Lara Flynn Boyle as Serleena
• Johnny Knoxville as Scrad & Charlie
• Rosario Dawson as Laura Vasquez
• Tony Shalhoub as Jack Jeebs
• Patrick Warburton as Agent T
• Jack Kehler as Ben
• David Cross as Newton
• Colombe Jacobsen as Hailey
• Michael Jackson as Himself (cameo)
• Peter Graves as Himself
• Biz Markie as Beatboxing Alien
• Nick Cannon as MIB Autopsy Agent
• Jay Johnston as Younger Pizza Parlor MIB Agent
• Drew Massey as Worm Boy (uncredited)
• Kevin Grevioux as Pineal Eye
• Martha Stewart as Herself (cameo)
• Peter Spellos as Captain Larry Bridgewater
• Tim Blaney as Frank the Pug (voice)
• Greg Ballora as Sleeble
• Carl J. Johnson as Gleeble
• Thom Fountain as Neeble
• Brad Abrell as Mannix
• Richard Pearson as Gordy

Production

Despite some initial involvement from David Koepp (who left to work on Spider-Man), the script was written by Robert Gordon and later revised by Barry Fanaro (who added pop culture references, something which Gordon had deliberately avoided). 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." Fanaro condensed the first part of the film and brought Agent K in earlier. 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. The day after the attacks of September 11, a spokesperson for the studio said that the ending would be refilmed.

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. 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." For the special effects scene where the subway train is attacked by Jeff the Worm, a specially designed vise was used to crush a subway car and make it look as if it had been bitten in half.

Release

Critical reception

The film received mixed to negative reviews from critics, gaining a 39% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, as opposed to the 91% rating given for its predecessor, based on 190 reviews and a Metacritic score of 50. 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." A review in The Hindu called the film "worth viewing once." 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). 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". 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 revenue of $52,148,751.^{[citation needed]} The film held onto the number one the following week with revenue of $24,410,311, a 53.2% decrease from its opening weekend. 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.

After one month the film remained in the box office chart, at fourth place, with revenue of $8,477,202. Men In Black II fell out of the top-ten at the box office chart after its sixth week of release. After sixty two days of release in North America, Men In Black II grossed $190,418,803. 43.1% of the film's worldwide revenue of $441,818,803 came from North America.

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.

External links

• Official website
• Men in Black II at the Internet Movie Database
• Men in Black II at AllRovi