Films/DVD Asylum

Posted by Audiophilander (A) on July 04, 2002 at 22:00:49

In Reply to: the alternative? posted by late on July 04, 2002 at 20:24:39:

... 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.