Films/DVD Asylum

Saw it today, and the first MIB was much, MUCH better!

12.238.114.147

[ Follow Ups ] [ Post Followup ] [ Thread: Display Email ] [ Films/DVD Asylum ] [ FAQ ]

Audiophilander

(A)

In Reply to: MIB........2 posted by late on July 04, 2002 at 17:27:33:

Still, I could recommend it for a budget matinee. The effects are good and the Will Smith & Tommy Lee Jones banter is always good for a few laughs, but the pacing is off and the gags don't always work. Moreover, I wish that they (i.e., Screenwriter(s), etc.) hadn't borrowed the outline from the first movie and substituted that for a fully fleshed out original storyline! Oooops! I think that I just gave away the plot! ;^D
AuPh

Follow Ups:

the alternative? - late 20:24:39 07/04/02 (2)
Hi,
my big complaint is that the girl from the first one didn't show up. Hard to imagine what else they could do with the film. MIB are alien cops whose job is to save da world. The concept demands a buddy team, an alien threat. This movie, like most these days, shows clearly that it was thrown together quickly, it could have used some more work. But the wonderful surprises of the first movie ('Elvis isn't dead, he just went home') were a big part of the success of the first, and just not possible here.
- The buddy team (alias Smith & Jones) was fine, ... - Audiophilander 22:00:49 07/04/02 (1)
  ... and I liked the pooch and worm-guys joinin' in on the hijinks. It's just that the "McGuffin" was almost exactly the same scenario as last go round (i.e., alien visitor takes human form and tries to track down thingy that will give him/her/it supreme power within a certain time period with Earth's future hanging in the balance). Couldn't the writers have concocted some modest variation or "twist" on the original movie's theme beyond just changing the villain from a "he" to a "she" and making Will Smith's new love interest depart to the stars instead of joining the MIB team? The problem is that the first movie worked better from start to finish and established two relationships by film's end that satisfied the viewer's concerns for the characters; unfortunately, those relationships were dumped with just a perfunctory explanation in MIB-II. Good writers should've been capable of weaving the outcome of the original film into the sequel so that it would've contributed an interesting secondary element of the story.
  Sigh! I guess Barry Sonnenfeld didn't see enough laughs there. I'm confident that this sequel will make money, probably upwards of $200 million, but had the sequel been as satisfying as the first one it would probably make twice that. As it is, I doubt I will be picking up the DVD of MIB-II for my collection.
  BTW, the high-point for me was the unexpected addition of a new cartoon (Pixar?) included before the feature; that was a hoot! :o)
  Cheers,
  AuPh
  PS: Did you notice that hip new suit Will Smith wore at the end of the first movie disappeared without explanation from the sequel? I guess that the Director figured that Tommy Lee Jones wouldn't look right in a similar outfit.
  - Missed the girl, didn't notice the threads... - late 09:03:22 07/05/02 (0)
    Hi,
    I think we are saying the same thing, pretty much, just in a different way. If they had properly worked it, the story would have gotten a new wrinkle, the film would have been storyboarded (I think that's the right term for drawing each scene in advance). The plot
    turns on J calling the Pug and filling him in. Prob is, he had personally remioved the Pug from the case, left the Pug in a situation where the Pug could not do anything, and where the potential for that information getting into the wrong hands would be obvious to a grade school kid. With the kind of money they have to play with, borrowing plot devices from Get Smart is just lame.

This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors:

Parts Connexion

You can not post to an archived thread.