Men in Black II (2002)

Agent J needs help so he is sent to find Agent K and restore his memory.

Director:

Barry Sonnenfeld

Writers:

Lowell Cunningham (comic book "Malibu Comics"), Robert Gordon (story),

Stars:

Tommy Lee Jones, Will Smith, Rip Torn

2 wins & 9 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Tommy Lee Jones	...	Kay
Will Smith	...	Jay
Rip Torn	...	Zed
Lara Flynn Boyle	...	Serleena
Johnny Knoxville	...	Scrad / Charlie
Rosario Dawson	...	Laura Vasquez
Tony Shalhoub	...	Jack Jeebs
Patrick Warburton	...	Agent Tee
Jack Kehler	...	Ben
David Cross	...	Newton
Colombe Jacobsen-Derstine	...	Hailey (as Colombe Jacobsen)
Peter Spellos	...	Captain Larry Bridgewater, The Motorman
Michael Rivkin	...	Man with Harvey, the Dog
Michael Bailey Smith	...	Creepy
Lenny Venito	...	New York Guy

Storyline

Kay and Jay reunite to provide our best, last and only line of defense against a sinister seductress who levels the toughest challenge yet to the MIBs untarnished mission statement: protecting the earth from the scum of the universe. It's been four years since the alien-seeking agents averted an intergalactic disaster of epic proportions. And now it's a race against the clock as Jay must convince Kay-who not only has absolutely no memory of his time spent with the Men In Black, but is also the only living person left with the expertise to save the galaxy-to reunite with the MIB before the earth submits to ultimate destruction.

---

Plot Keywords:

alien | lingerie model | lingerie | planet | pug | 

---

Taglines:

This Summer, They're Back in Business. They're Back in Action. They're Back in Black.

---

Genres:

Action | Comedy | Sci-Fi

---

Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated PG-13 for sci-fi action violence and some provocative humor

Details

Official Sites:

Columbia [us] - info,trailer (Flash) Official Facebook

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

3 July 2002 (USA)

Also Known As:

MIB 2

Filming Locations:

American Museum of Natural History - Central Park West and 79th Street, Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$140,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend:

$2,254,566 (Italy) (13 September 2002)

Gross:

£22,018,371 (UK) (27 September 2002)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Columbia Pictures Corporation, Amblin Entertainment, MacDonald/Parkes Productions

Technical Specs

Runtime:

88 min

Sound Mix:

DTS Dolby Digital SDDS

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

In the Hungarian-dubbed version Elizabeth (the Young Girl at the Post Office) lines were redubbed from "Twenty Rugrats stamps please" to "South Park stamps please" because South Park was better known than Rugrats in Hungary that time. In the German-dubbed version her lines were re-dubbed to "Pokémon stamps please" because Pokémon was better known at that time.

---

Goofs

When Agent K removes his digital Hamilton from the clock tower in the Grand Central Station locker, Agent J replaces it with the new Hamilton Ventura Chronograph. The next shot shows K's digital Hamilton back in the spot, replaced again by J's analog in the shots that follow.

---

Quotes

[first lines]
Mysteries in History Narrator: Mysteries in History with your host, Peter Graves!
Peter Graves: Although no one has ever been able to prove their existence, a quasi-government agency known as the Men in Black supposedly carries out secret operations here on Earth in order to keep us safe from aliens throughout the galaxies. Here is one of their stories that never happened, from one of their files that doesn't exist...

---

Crazy Credits

In the opening credits, Serleena's ship travels across the universe, vaporizing any planets it comes across, before finally landing on Earth.

---

Connections

References Star Trek (1966)

---

Soundtracks

"Planet of the Wolves"
Written by Seiji Anno, Hideaki Sekiguchi and Toru Kuvibayashi
Performed by Guitar Wolf
Courtesy of Matador Records

User Reviews

bland sequel

`Originality,' is, almost by definition, a one-time thing. In 1997, the original `Men in Black' struck a nerve with movie audiences by showing that even a big budget blockbuster, heavily loaded down with state-of-the-art, computer-generated special effects, could still manage to seem light on its feet. The makers of that film pulled off this feat of gravitational legerdemain by coming up with a concept and a script overflowing with creativity, wit, imagination and a cachet of `hipness' to go along with its tone of anarchic playfulness.

Well, five years have passed and we now have `Men in Black II' to confirm what most of us suspected all along: that works that rely on `uniqueness' as their prime selling point are rarely ever able to duplicate their success a second time around. Five years can be a lifetime in pop culture and what seemed `cool' one summer can appear decidedly `old hat' the next. Without that aura of cutting edge newness that defined the original, `Men in Black II' seems like just another loud, over-the-top summertime blockbuster.

Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones are back playing Jay and Kay, agents for the government's top secret organization whose job it is to monitor the activities of the thousands of aliens who have secretly infiltrated earth's societies and to help protect the planet from any possible threat from interstellar space. Smith and Jones still appear to be quite comfortable in their roles and they are aided by Lara Flynn Boyle, as Serleena, the baddest alien this side of Darth Vader, and Rip Torn, delightful as Zed, the slightly cracked head of the Men in Black agency.

Although the special effects in this film are, as one would expect in this day and age, astonishing and virtually seamless, the same can definitely NOT be said for the film's screenplay. The story moves along at a fairly fast clip, but it rarely makes us laugh. In fact, the script comes across as undisciplined nonsense, lacking both logic and coherence. Unlike in the earlier film, we get the sense that literally everything here has been placed at the service of the special effects. There's an awful lot of running and bouncing around but rarely to any point or purpose. Indeed, we end up feeling at the end somehow more exhausted and drained than exhilarated and euphoric. It would appear that director Barry Sonnenfeld thought that if he could just keep the thing MOVING we wouldn't notice that he had nothing new to offer in this retread. It doesn't work. In fact, if `Men in Black II' shows us anything, it is that just because something MOVES doesn't mean that it can't bore us at the same time.