Reviews Film / Men In Black II

Men In Black 2: Ever After

This isn't a bad film, it's not as good as the first by any means but it's not without charm and there is a lot of the same goofy fun there to be had. There are worse ways to kill a few hours.

It is a little strange though (and yes I'm saying this about a film with a Ballchinian). Questions are asked at the start. Will Smith is lonely at the top, he can't trust anyone and won't find himself a partner, he's doing it but no-one knows who he is and it's getting to him. He meets a girl whose mind he doesn't wipe and we know it's going to be love. Then his former mentor is brought back and the situation gets worse, Smith has gotten used to being the best and being in charge and is finding it hard to get along with his old partner.

They're all the standard sort of flaws that any screenwriter would be introduced to and his first day at class and there's nothing wrong with them.

But then they don't go anywhere. Smith just sinks back into his role as the inexperienced youngling with his superior mentor. He still hasn't learnt how to trust people, or found a new partner or gotten used to being lonely. Spoiler here *

. At the end of the film the beginning has been forgotten and so has the end of the last film too, it ends right back at the start.

It doesn't actually make the film worse. None of it was surprising and the resolutions were expected as much as the two people who hate each other getting together at the end of the rom-com. If they'd followed through we'd have just nodded at a plain job done to the standards we expect. So the film wasn't ruined by not answering those questions. But they didn't do it deliberately either to subvert our expectations. It just felt like they were the remnants of an earlier draft and as the film got to the end they were just left to one side.

It didn't end Happily Ever After or Miserably Ever After. It was merely Ever After