Neuralize me, please

Rating: 4/10 (8 July 2002)

I wanted to like this sequel. I enjoyed Men In Black well enough that I thought the sequel would be a laugh. I expected to see a few new gadgets, a conflict with a new Earth-destroying alien, some good one-liners a bunch of nice effects shots and maybe a corny love story. I went to a noon matinee and some popcorn and hoped for a good time. I didn't get one.
Bad sequel. Bad. No biscuit, Gordon! No biscuit, Sonnenfeld!
Jay (Jones) and Kay (Smith) weren't funny. They were hardly wearing the suits. Boyle? She was phoning it in between cases from Suffolk County. There was no emotion between Serleena (Boyle) and Zed (Torn). Hey, the talking dog was cool, though. Tee (Warburton) was, um, was hardly there.
I had some hope when they dropped in on Jeebs (Shalhoub) that we'd see some of the fun secondary characters from the movie but that was about it. Do we get to see the worms hanging in their apartment very long? No. Do we get to see more of either Jay or Kay's love interests? No. Do we get any cute side plots about other alien infractions? No. Do we get to see conflict over the Noisy Cricket? No. Do we get any funny--I mean, funny--neuralyzer reprogramming? No. Do we get to see any Kill-O-Zap defenses at MiB Headquarters? No. Do we get any nifty surprise cameos? No.
Were there some nice moments? Yeah. Ben (Kehler) and Lara (Dawson) were nice together. And the aliens that we find out worship Kay? Man, I wanted to see more of them. Just a few more shots of their world would have been nice. ("Two for one every Wednesday!") In fact, you might be able to make a nice 30 minute TV show out of clips from the secondary characters.

I didn't even finish my popcorn or stay for the credits. In fact, if you want to see it, don't leave when you think its over. There's a tacked-on epilogue that tries to inject some human emotions that, based on the writing to that point, is just lame. Not even stereotyped "guys trying to be sensitive with guys" lame. Just lame.
Rating: 4