Men in Black II (2002)

Regisseur:

Barry Sonnenfeld

Drehbuchautoren (WGA):

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

Premierendatum:

3. Juli 2002 (USA)

Genre:

Action | Komödie | Sci-Fi

Werbezeile:

Same Planet. New Scum.

Plot:

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

Plot Keywords:

Panties And Bra | Alien Contact | Alien Technology | Spaceship | UFO

Filmpreise:

2 wins & 8 nominations

Nutzerkommentare:

bland sequel

Besetzung

Tommy Lee Jones	...	Kevin Brown, Agent Kay
Will Smith	...	Agent 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

Alternativ:

MIB 2 (USA) (promotional abbreviation)
MIIB (USA) (promotional abbreviation)
Men in Black 2 (USA) (alternative spelling)
Men in Black II (Österreich) (Deutschland) [de]

MPAA:

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

Länge:

88 Min

Produktionsland:

USA

Sprache:

Englisch

Farbe:

Farbe (DeLuxe)

Seitenverhältnis:

1.37 : 1

Tonverfahren:

DTS | Dolby Digital | SDDS

Altersfreigabe:

South Africa:PG | Iceland:LH (video rating) | Canada:PG (Alberta/British Columbia/Manitoba/Nova Scotia/Ontario) | Canada:G (Quebec) | Denmark:11 | Iceland:10 | Malaysia:U | Argentina:Atp | Australia:PG | Austria:10 | Finland:K-11 | France:U | Germany:12 | Hong Kong:IIA | Netherlands:MG6 | New Zealand:PG | Norway:11 | Philippines:PG-13 | Singapore:PG | South Korea:12 | Spain:7 | Sweden:11 | Switzerland:10 (canton of Geneva) | Switzerland:10 (canton of Vaud) | Switzerland:12 (canton of the Grisons) | UK:PG | USA:PG-13 (certificate #38095)

Drehorte:

Central Park, Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA

Firma:

Amblin Entertainment

Dies und das:

When J and K go to the Worms' apartment, they are speaking Huttesse to each other. Huttesse is the language of the hutts from the Star Wars films.

Pannen:

Verschiedenes: Scrad just disappears when J's fighting the aliens in Jeeb's basement. There is no explanation or scene that shows what happened to him .

Dialogzitate:

[Jay neuralyzes Agent T]
Agent J: Get married, have a bunch of kids.
Agent T: Okay.
Agent J: [to a waitress on his way out] Hey, listen. My buddy's kind of shy, but he thinks you are HOT.

Bezüge zu anderen Titeln:

Verweis/Anspielung/Erwähnung in 2007 MTV Movie Awards (2007) (TV)

Soundtrack:

I Will Survive

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.