We recall having had a really rollicking time watching the first “Men in Black” sci-fi comedy flick. It ranked up there with “Back to the Future 1” in terms of puckish inventiveness and plain rip-roaring fun.
So when the new “Men in Black” sequel opened in town, we made sure we caught it in the cineplex nearest us.
It still makes for fun viewing, but its cheeky freshness has been eroded, and its storytelling isn’t as clear as it should be, peppered as it is with too many sidelights that distract, rather than add, to the new production’s appeal.
The plot, what little there is of it, has veteran Agent J (Will Smith) time-travel to 1969 to prevent an extraterrestrial criminal named Boris from killing J’s partner, Agent K (Tommy Lee Jones) as a young man (played by Josh Brolin), changing all of history, and putting the entire planet at the mercy of evil aliens.
The time-travel part of the story is sometimes loads of fun and inventiveness, but “witty” bits that don’t quite work slow the movie down. Still, the film’s central theme about the many possibilities of the future, as vivified by a sweet and droll alien named Griffin (Michael Stuhlbarg), is quite enchanting.
But the film’s linchpin is the carryover performance of Smith as Agent J.
Jones is another lead player, but since he already looks well along in years, his youthful persona in the 1960s is portrayed by Brolin.
This turns out to be a problem, since Brolin is onscreen much more often than Jones, but is too laconic and dry to come off as sardonically entertaining as Jones used to.
Also not quite on the up-and-up are some of the supporting or also-starring portrayals, like Jemain Clement’s too loud and in-your-face depiction of the movie’s principal villain, Boris the Animal.
At first, the character inveigles with his digitized ability to transform himself into all sorts of toothy little critters who can cut through chains of steel and thus effect his swift getaways. But, he’s simply too strident to come off as deftly diverting, and we’re so relieved when he finally gets his comeuppance —in outer space.
The film also turns out to feature a number of stellar cameos, like Nicole Scherzinger as Boris’ girlfriend who helps him escape from prison, but is shafted for her pains, plus Lady Gaga in a brief video clip, and Emma Thompson as Agent O.
All told, however, the celebrity cameos don’t add much to the movie—so, given Brolin’s stolid rather than solid performance, Smith has to work doubly hard to keep the production’s interest value above water.
Another problem is the relative lack of “crazy” creativity with which Barry Sonnenfeld’s film limns its rogue’s gallery of nasty extraterrestrials. But, the character of the alien with a detachable head that’s used by Agent J as a bowling ball is a fun visual conceit.
All told, we had the most fun riffing with the fey character of Griffin as he speculated about the complex turns that the mystifying future can take. Would that the rest of the movie could have been as choice as “food for thought” for the antic imagination!