Hard to Nod My Head

An unplanned trip to the movie house to see a preview of Men In Black 2 did not appeal to me. However, sheer boredom prompted me to say yes to my friend’s invitation. I had time to kill, anyway. Then, after almost two hours of sitting in the theater and wondering where the damn story is going, I realized I was better off killing time some other way.

The sequel to the hugely successful Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones movie is, sadly, nothing but a special effects extravaganza that had nothing new to offer. The laughs were few and far between and the novelty of the high tech gadgets showcased here has obviously worn off. We have seen those guns before. We have seen those aliens before. We have seen Will Smith’s cute antics and Tommy Lee Jones’s dour yet endearing character before. What the hell are we in the theater for?

As for the plot… well… the evil Serleena (Lara Flynn Boyle) is looking for the Light of Zarna. Only Agent Kay (Jones) knows where it is so Agent Jay (Smith) has to zap him with a "deneuralyzer" to bring his memories back and stop Serleena from getting the "light". Are we interested yet? The world will end if the two agents fail in their mission. Uh… okay.

Michael Jackson’s cameo appearance was a nice touch considering he missed out on being in the first installment. He probably turned green with envy when the likes of Steven Spielberg, Sylvester Stallone, Danny De Vito and George Lucas lent their faces to the first production. (It’s hard to believe those guys are human.) Boyle makes for a very boring villainess. Arched eyebrows and blood red lipstick hardly helped transform her into something we could really hate.

To be fair, Men In Black 2 never claimed to be more than a two hour romp. A campy movie is what people expect when they go into the theater. They also expect to be entertained and treated to a few surprises the way only campy movies can. There are some silly movies that illicit more than a few guffaws. MIIB has managed to get just a few chortles. The only surprising thing about this movie was that it was made at all! Frank the Dog was as annoying as Jar Jar Binks and so was the dimwitted two-headed alien. They only made the production look much worse.

The only redeeming element to this movie is the single "Nod Your Head" sung by Smith. It makes you want to bob your head like a turkey. The movie, on the other hand, just made me scratch mine, at best.

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E-mail the author at lmpilapil@philtown.com.ph