Men in Black

Rated: Simmering

I loved Men in Black. It's not a work of genius, but it is not just a kid's film either. It's got a lot of detail, and you've got to work reasonably hard to catch it all . And most of what you catch is hilarious. It'd pay to see this film twice to catch all the details.

I've got to admit that I'm a sucker for silly sci-fi films. Especially those that have aliens that are truly evil (and we all know the aliens will turn out to be evil, when they finally do arrive).

But Men in Black has aliens of all kinds: evil aliens, funny aliens, benign aliens, slimy aliens, furry aliens and aliens that just want to goof off and drink coffee and smoke cigarettes.

Too many reviews of Men in Black have given away too many of the good jokes and terrific lines in the film, so I won't be doing that. But I will say that the film has some terrific monsters and lots of great weaponry, and a stunning opening chase that ends up, surprisingly, at Frank Lloyd Wright's Guggenheim Museum. And it has an almost unrecognisable Vincent d'Onofrio (but, come to think of it, he's always almost unrecognisable!).

Tommy Lee Jones plays it straight as a die and he's wonderful (as usual). Will Smith is OK, especially in the chase scene, but should pay more attention to his human co-stars, Jones, and the marvellous Rip Torn. He might learn a thing or two from these seasoned pros. (And by the way, why don't we get The Larry Sanders Show on free-to-air TV any more? It was my favourite show, and it has again received scores of nominations in the 1997 Emmys.)

Men in Black is the kind of movie that you come out of chuckling and saying things like "What about when...?" "What did you think of the alien who....", and "I liked it when.....". And you keep on doing it for days.