truly terrible

Rating: 1/10 (7 July 2002)

I was really amazed at how badly this sucked. It was 3/4 an attempt at a Mel Brooks-style parody of the original, and 1/4 an earnest sequel; it was impossible to take the result seriously within its own parameters because you were constantly hearing Sonnenberg screaming at you through the shots "this is a stupid ridiculous piece of nothing which I'm just doing for the dough."
You would think that an actor like Tommy Lee Jones wouldn't put up with it; he shoulda just walked off the set. Will Smith apparently thought that his banter would save the film, but he was wrong.
The worst kind of sequel: a massive repeat of the original, only much much dumber, without even a decent recreation of the original tone or sense of reality. Successful sequels heighten or deepen the themes of the original - give us Men in Black mythology; give us a new conflict, perhaps a mole within the agency; give us a trip to another planet; give us a more fully developed alien character, instead of aliens-as-one-liners. Edit out the schtick which doesn't serve the plot and isn't funny and which just takes you out of the movie and reminds you that the director thinks it's all just a stupid joke.
There was not a single decent moment in the whole stupid thing.
This terrible terrible movie isn't even worth the time it took to tell you how stupid it was - but there's an obligation to try to get you the viewing public to save your precious few dollars... you'd get more enjoyment out of burning your money then spending 88 minutes watching this.
They should have named this Men in Bleccch