Men in Blank

Rating: Null/10 (1 August 2002)

Most reviewers argue that Men in Black II is dumb cash-in standard issue sequel with no story, no script and with blatant product placement to boot.
They're right about the product placement and the cash-in part, but this movie is certainly not dumb as such. MIIB goes nowhere near the rock bottom lowest common denominator level of the stereotypical Hollywood comedy that does great in the US but the rest of the world hates it (Waterboy, Caddyshack, Scary Movie to name but a few).
The problem with MIIB is not that it's dumb, because it simply isn't. It's not throwing Arnold-type one liners at you; it's not built on toilet humor (if you want a 'rectal' Sci-fi comedy check out the Head & Shoulders commercial "Evolution"); it's not pulling _only_ cheap laughs out of the audience. It's not an intellectual masterpiece, rest assured. But it's street smart.
The problem with MIIB is not the story. Yes, it's a complete blueprint of MIB, like any other derivatory bad-guy-gets-it-at-the-end action comedy. But then again you really didn't expect the Marshmallow man to win in Ghostbusters did you.
The REAL problem with MIIB is a total lack of HEART, and consequently of TIMING. Nobody cared about this movie. Nobody burned for this movie. This movie was nobody's baby. MIIB is like the fastest guitar solo in the world played by a robot: Everything is in perfect pitch and therefore utterly devoid of emotion. As a result, nothing works as intended. The timing makes no sense at all. People in the theater aren't laughing - but they're not rolling their eyes either, they just sit there completely blank, with a slight touch of confusion. They get the jokes alright, but they're delivered in a context that never allows for a joke to be absorbed, because of what happened immediately before it, or what happens immediately after it. It's as if the entire film is a patchwork of jokes randomly thrown in, like there was an isolated staff of joke writers who just delivered funny dialog, a separate team working on the storyline, and then it was all boiled down into some software that generated the script based on an algorithm with no bare bones timing parameters like "punchline" and "cue".
Take Sam Raimi's Spiderman - it's just as predictable and derivatory as anything else in this category, but Raimi _loves_ Spiderman, and probably sits up all night playing with his action figures, and his childish fascination with Spidey makes all the difference, because we can all feel it.
I get a George Lucas vibe out of MIIB. It looks great but there's no traces of humanity anywhere. Oh wait, somebody must have liked Frank the dog, because his timing was good for the lion's share of his screen time. And surprise - people laughed.
I'm not going to watch MIIB again. I didn't walk out of the theatre hating it or feeling ripped off, I just walked out feeling absolutely nothing. None of the people I went with had anything to say, everyone just shrugged.