Men in Black 2

rated             HOT! HOT! HOT!

More worm trouble

What's wrong with doing more of the same thing, especially if it makes people laugh?  So what if the plot is weak?  How could anyone resist a film in which Rick Baker is billed as 'Alien Effects Supervisor'?  There are plenty of hilarious aliens. So many in fact that too many are just thrown away.  But throw in Tommy Lee Jones, Will Smith,  a truly scary Lara Flynn Boyle (sending herself up beautifully, with cleavage which she says 'they pulled up from my knees', and add Danny Elfman music.  Begin with a cheesy TV show introduced by Peter Graves (doing Ed Wood's Criswell) and you have a film that is pure fun.

Tommy Lee Jones has reached George Burns proportions in the straight man stakes.  He is as arid as the Gibson Desert.  And the script is just one joke after another.  A few of the gems:

 'That's why you feel so comfortable here', says Will to Tommy Lee.  'Just about everyone who works in the post office is an alien.'
 'I must have neutralised myself to keep the information from myself', says Tommy Lee.
 When Tommy Lee sticks his finger into water ball and we see that inside the ball is a whole world of creatures crying  'All is lost!'
 Frank the Pug sings along to 'Who let the Dogs Out?' by the Bahamen.

OK, so there are several Dune (David Lynch, 1984) worm rip-offs in the first few scenes. And one or two of the creatures are borrowed, perhaps, from Little Shop of Horrors (Roger Corman, 1961).  But any film which ends with a whole world in a train station
locker can't be all bad even if that looks like an idea from the Twilight Zone episode featuring  the 'Zantimisfits'.  That's the basic joke of the film - that we humans are just a minor bleep on the aliens' radar. 

With that in mind, I'm hanging out for Men in Black 3 to begin back in the train station locker.