Men in Black II
Dir: Barry Sonnenfeld
2002
**
Five years after the original film, Barry Sonnenfeld and team seemed to have forgotten what made the idea so appealing and successful in the first place. Any film whereby 'saving the world' was part of the synopsis post 9/11 suffered somewhat, but that wasn't the problem with Men in Black II. The problem was that it was pretty much a re-hash of the highly original first film. The only thing they changed was a slight change of direction in the humour. It went backwards and downhill. There were subtle lines in the first film that related to celebrities being secret Aliens, it worked well then but was exploited and ruined here, specifically with cringeworthy cameos. The jokes were brash, too obvious and not particularly funny. Product placement was everywhere and the whole production looked more like an advert than a film in its own right. None of the actors looked as engaged with the project as they did in the first film and thus the magic was lost. The first film ended so well that the sequel felt like a cheap cash-in from the very beginning and nothing had changed my opinion of this by the end credits.