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| Men in Black 2 |
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 Like most other sequels, Men in Black II is something of a knockoff, but then again, the original installment was pretty much a knockoff, too. I don't mean that in a bad way. The hang-loose grodiness of these films has its charms, and the Ray-Banned team of Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones, at its best, is good vaudeville. There isn't much of a plot — something to do with saving the planet. Serleena (Lara Flynn Boyle) is the fanged monstrosity who alights in Central Park and disguises herself as a Victoria's Secret model; her dim-witted two-headed accomplice, played by Johnny Knoxville of MTV's Jackass series, could have used a few more heads. (I was hoping he'd have a big scene with Robot Squid, but it was not to be.) Once again, alien-makeup-effects supervisor Rick Baker delivers some of the gloppiest creatures ever to grace a comedy, and part of the pleasure in this new film is revisiting old favorites: Tony Shalhoub reprises his role as the alien pawnshop owner whose head, when severed, keeps regenerating into the same slobberer. And you'll be happy to know that this time, the Worm Guys have their own bachelor pad, complete with shag carpeting and hot tub. (It makes sense that they would be retro-sixties types; those smoothies were always wormy.)
Barry Sonnenfeld, who also directed Men in Black, doesn't bother much about pacing or continuity. He's in the same laggard mode he's been in for his last couple of films, Big Trouble and Wild Wild West, except that here the creature special effects save him. He may feel like he doesn't have to do a whole lot more than set Rick Baker loose — and he may be right. I thought Men in Black was a notch too garish for what was essentially a goofy kid's entertainment, and sometimes that's also true here. But in the intervening five years, creature effects in Hollywood movies have gotten so much more repulsive that the monsters on display in the sequel seem almost decorous. It's the humans who have become more alienlike, especially Tommy Lee Jones. In the last film, as Agent Kay, he "neuralized" — erased — his own memory in order to live a normal life. He begins the new film as a postmaster in Truro sternly lecturing customers on how to properly wrap packages. His infernal deadpan is the epitome of the government functionary. As for his co-laborers, they are a testament to the film's most resonant bit of wisdom: Just about everybody who works in a post office is an alien.
2 hrs. 7 mins.; PG-13.
— PETER RAINER
Opens July 3
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Showtimes & tickets (movietickets.com)
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