*** Official "MEN IN BLACK 2" Discussion Thread (1 Viewer)

Mark McLeod said:

I'll be seeing this one Monday night. I hope it doesn't suck too bad but I'm not expecting much. It was MIB 2 or Like Mike so I hope I didn't make the wrong choice.

You made the wrong choice. Seriously.

I saw MIB II last night, and you could practically hear crickets chirping in the audience. Toss aside all the other baggage people are bringing to this discussion, all that matters is if it is funny or not. It isn't (IMHO, of course). It's an unsatisfying retread of the original. For the record, I liked the first one. The thread title nails it--MIB II is dull.

Like Mike is a slight kids' film, but it has more energy and laughs than MIB II. Really, I'm not joking. (The Powerpuff Girls Movie is better than either of them, FWIW.)

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Ebert just weighed in with his opinion...1.5 stars.

Okay, I avoided any HTF discussion about MIB2, but now that I've actually seen this festering pile of filth, I thought I'd chime in with my own opinions.
[Roger Ebert voice]I hated, hated, hated this movie.[/Roger Ebert voice] Anyone familiar with me at all knows I enjoy a LOT of "mindless" movies, but MIB2 feels more like an 82-minute spittle shower.
I'm hesitant to post my review, since my castrations of both Mr. Deeds and Scooby-Doo were both met with blatant insults directed at yours truly. (By the way, thanks to whichever administrator it was who promptly deleted those comments. I'll gladly take someone challenging my very opinionated reviews, but personal insults hurt my widdle feelings.) :frowning:
So back to the cack at hand: I'm praying that somehow MIB2 ends up losing money, although I can't imagine how that could happen. In my mind, it's the worst form of crass, lazy and insultingly pandering 'movie product' you're ever likely to come across.
I freely admit to not being a big fan of the original MIB, but that's a film I could see on cable and watch a stray half-hour. This sequel joins the ranks of Ghostbusters 2, Caddyshack 2, Blues Brothers 2000, and any other follow-up that was creately SOLELY out of a slavish devotion to "name recognition money-grubbing". Yes, I'm fully aware that studios exist to make MONEY, but you should expect SOME sort of concerted effort for your 8 bucks...40 bucks if you have a family.
Whenever I dislike a movie, part of me fully WANTS other people to enjoy it. I figure movies are like ice cream; I loathe pistachio, but I hope it pleases you. Such is not the case for MIB2. I sincerely hope that those who go to see it REALLY dislike it...and then tell their friends. I hate to sound vindictive, but if we keep making blockbusters out of dungheaps, that's all we'll ever get.
P.S. If you wanna see me rant for another 8 paragraphs, my full review is available at the link below.

This thread is now designated the Official Discussion Thread for "Men In Black 2". Please, post all comments, links to outside reviews, film and box office discussion items to this thread.
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Crawdaddy

MIB2 will make into someone's list of guilty pleasure, though not mine. It is a movie that will be easily forgettable.

Funny thing is that I rather enjoyed it and found several of the jokes actually fresh, having fun with the new switched roles between Jones and Smith.
However, to be fair as a reviewer, the audience was dead quiet most of the time.
Jokes like the reintroduction of the noisy cricket got zero response except for me (and the guy that laughed at EVERYTHING, including the M&M commercial). At times I honestly felt like people were forgetting the schtick from the first one and some of the references.
Another joke that died which you will have seen in the trailer, when Jones is explaining the improper wrapping technique for a package and ends with "and I think you know what I mean, Mrs. (Jones or something)". I laughed at this and thought it fit perfectly with the same dry humor that he brought to the first film.
And later when we find out that Shaloub is about to appear again I laughed as soon as I saw his photo. But the audience was dead.
I could go on and on about gags that I thought were pretty good that got zero response.
Now there were some big laughs that got the whole audience, but probably only about 5-10 in the whole film.
But forgetting everyone else's reaction for a second, I would say that MIB2 follows the original formula pretty well, but typical of many sequels it doesn't quite have the same pop to it. There are some honest dead beats in the film and a few effects that are just darn stupid (like Rip Torn fighting CTHD style ). Some scenes and jokes don't work, not even for me.
But for the most part I thought it was a rather entertaining film while falling short of the original. If MIB1 was a 9 on my scale (for the year, not all-time), then MIB2 will rate as a 7.
Everyone else thinks it's a 1 or 2. I guess I don't see that. I wanted more MIB and I got more MIB, just not in the same tasty package.

Yours is one of the first good reviews of the movie I have seen. I also enjoyed the first movie immensely because it was very original/funny/ludicrous and I was a little worried due to the overall negative response I saw this film getting.

A great example of a joke that I would consider old-school fast-wit comedy was when J tells K they used to work together and K immediately comes back with "I never worked in a morgue."

Only I laughed. But to me the quick delivery and wit in something like that is actually normally missing in modern comedy. Based on the audience response I suppose I know why.

Another great delivery is when J (smith) gives the DeNeuralyzer speech and K gives the "Okay. What's that thing?" response. Now I know that got trailered to death, but I still think the reaction Smith gives is what really sells the moment, meaning his attitude after he first starts to try to explain it again. Those were the touches I really enjoyed in the film.

A terrible, terrible, terrible movie. A terrible, terrible, terrible comedy. With the exception of the two elements from the trailer (Frank and the steering wheel dude) there was one other scene that go people laughing - the locker. The best the entire movie could get besides those three scenes was a chuckle.
Tony Shaloub was pretty bad, and felt out of character compared to the first. Lara was a terrible bad guy. The special effects for Johnny Knoxville were amatuerish at best (this was made by ILM?!?!?), which is made worse by the fact that he is in the whole damn movie.
A bad movie, and a waste of time for anyone. The locker scene is not worth the price of admission.

I for one loved the first one. I went in judging by the trailers to MIIB that this would be the same, and it pretty much was but I did feel like either the timing was off, or there was too much quiet. Maybe they put in a lot of laugh filler expecting the audiences to be rolling which in some cases they were but most they just got a good chuckle and that was it. Some of the gags were great though, like the alien ship landing and we are revealed its size. Best part is probably Michael Jackson wanting to be Agent M.

Overall I think the movie felt rushed or all the jokes were just half written. I agree with one of the posters saying that some of the best lines were the ones with Smith showing his reaction afterwords. Unfornuately not everyone laughed at those so it was hit or miss.

Not one that I will go see again, but will probably buy the dvd.

Look hard, look very hard for something to amuse you!

I like the postman, waterworld, armageddon, and pearl harbor. This will probably end up being my favorite movie ever!

Steve...you attend a lot of studio focus groups, don't you?
Just watched MIB 1, and I can't believe how much better it is than the first one. Forgiving the fact that the second will have less originality (by being a sequel), the first is leagues better.
The special effects, dialogue, plot (such as it is), comic timing, banter, charactarizations, Tony Shaloub, climax, and pacing are all much much better.
What a shame that they couldn't come up with better than this after 5 years. This is the kind of thing I would expect from an immediate cash payday movie made less than a year after a successful sequel.

Wow, the last time I saw a sequel so universally panned was BATMAN AND ROBIN in '97. I was going to see this one in the theater, but I think I'll just rent the DVD.

Although not as good as the first one, I thought there was much to like in this.

I totally agree with Seth, those little throw-away lines were the best thing in the film.

Is it me or does this movie seem to have been edited very very poorly? It just seems very disjointed and it was paced very weirdly.

I thought that Tommy Lee Jones just slept through the movie without a care in the world. I think he was just collecting a paycheck. I mean, his dry personality along with the one-liners he had in the first movie was perfect. Now he has the dry personality and nothing funny to say. It was awful.

His deneuralization with the homemade deneuralizer was an absolute joke. After it was completed, I was sure that he was still neuralized and was just pretending to be aware of what was going on. It was just sorta like, "Ok, I'm deneuralized now, let's go find the light."

It was okay. Worth seeing at the theater but any more than once is too much. Fell short of the original. TLJ sense of humor is more straight faced than anything else but that is how he comes off in most of the other comedies he is in (Space Cowboys, MIB 1). Seemed like most of the audience didn't get the other gags in the movie. But what was with showing Michael Jackson? Could have lived without that.
Will add this one to the dvd collection later on.
Loved seeing The Two Towers preview prior to the movie.