Analysis
I avoided this movie like the plague when it was released at the movies. I admit the original Men in Black was enjoyable but this second movie just did not appeal. When the DVD came up for review I had just over an hour to kill on a Sunday evening so I forced myself to sit through the movie.

Agent Jay is still working for the Men In Black and shortly into the film, gets partnered up with Frank the dog. In my opinion Frank was about the most interesting character within this movie. I suppose this does not say much for everyone else in the movie being upstaged by an annoying talking dog. Agent Kay comes back in to the film just before the half way stage but by this point I was loosing interest fast. The act of Will Smith adding the comedy and Tommy Lee Jones being the straight man worked well in the original movie but in this second version its just a tired formula that is not really built upon or improved.

The two evil aliens Serleena and Charlie-2-Heads are supposed to convince us that they are a threat to the Galaxy. I could not imagine that they could fight their way out of a paper bag let alone conquer the earth. Johnny Knoxville (of Jackass fame), plays Charlie-2-Heads and is yet another great example of a human character merged with poor CGI. Knoxville’s super imposed second head stuck upon a snake like neck is just so animated and unrealistic. It was also left unexplained exactly what happened to his character as he just seemed to vanish three quarters of the way through the film.

The overall SFX in the film were average. When agent Jay rides the alien bug around in the subway he looks really superimposed on its back. When will these production companies ever learn that if it looks poor, it is poor. That said though, the alien characters are well devised but are nothing out of the ordinary.

The film ends very poorly and abruptly. I did read that the film originally ended in a scene including the World Trade Center which was obviously changed due to the Sept 11th tragedy. The replaced ending is just so incredibly poor but under the circumstances can be forgiven.

To conclude I was glad I did not pay an admission fee to see this film. It was a shame this movie was made. It just did nothing to build on the original movie, it came across as very similar. Maybe it appealed to a much younger audience but I can admit it bored me silly. If its any conciliation the DVD special features are reasonably interesting as we are guided through the design studios methodology that they used to devise the characters within the movie.

Key Area	Rating (out of 5)	Comment
Action		Yes there is some action if you can manage to stay awake past the starting credits.
Thrills/ Tension		About as thrilling as a cold shower at 4am.
Violence/ Gore		A few alien fight scenes but on the whole very tame.
Bare Flesh	NONE	Some brief lingerie model shots at the beginning of the film. But that’s about as good as it gets.
Plot		The plot is extremely thin, honestly it does have a plot but it’s sadly not enough for the movie to last for even 90 minutes.

Verdict An example of a movie company releasing some half baked follow up to a reasonable film. I will be honest with you, in my opinion its only worth making a sequel if its going to be as good or better than the original. Men in Black 2 is a classic example of a sequel for the sake of a sequel. The plot is very lame, the ending very abrupt and so similar to the original.

Men in Black-Pants!