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Jay: You don't remember me, but we used to work together.
Kevin Brown/Kay: I never worked in a funeral home. Something I can do for you, slick?
Jay: Okay, uh, straight to the point: you are a former agent of a top-secret organization that monitors extra-terrestrials on Earth. We're the Men in Black, we have a situation, and we need your help.

Men in Black II (stylized MIIB) is the 2002 sequel to Men in Black and the second film in the Men in Black series. It is directed by Barry Sonnenfeld, with the screenplay by Robert Gordon and Barry Fanaro and the story by Gordon. It was released on July 3rd, 2002.

With K (Tommy Lee Jones) officially retired (with his memory wiped and civilian identity restored), J (Will Smith) has been working overtime as the top field agent of MiB. A powerful and malevolent alien named Serleena (Lara Flynn Boyle) returns to Earth looking for "The Light of Zartha," which is tied to a case K was involved with back in the '70s. To get the information they need, they reinstate K and get back to business.

The film also stars Johnny Knoxville as Scrad, Rosario Dawson as Laura Vasquez, Tony Shalhoub as Jack Jeebs and Rip Torn as Zed.

Much like the first movie, Will Smith released a tie-in music video entitled "Black Suits Comin' (Nod Ya Head)".

Its story was followed by Men in Black 3.


This film provides examples of:

    open/close all folders 

    Tropes # to F 
  • 30-Second Blackout: When J has to use Jeeb's illegal deneuralyzer to make K remember, a big part of NYC has a blackout because of it.
  • Accidental Misnaming: In the Hilarious Outtakes, director Barry Sonnenfeld kept referring to the automatic pilot actor as "Derek", despite Will Smith trying to tell him he was getting it wrong ("Who the fuck is Derek?!").
  • Actionized Sequel: The first film had some chase sequences, a little bit of gunplay and brief physical engagements, but was more of a sci-fi procedural. This film triples down on the action quotient, with the main characters getting into extended fight scenes and wrestling large aliens in a much more over-the-top manner (Zed somehow floats in mid-air repeatedly bicycle kicking Sarleena, to no effect).
  • Actor Allusion
    • Know that weird language J speaks in to the guy in the mail room? Well, the mailman is actually Biz Markie, and that "weird alien language" is actually beatboxing. Smith' had previously used that particular beat in two episodes of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air (one of which, hilariously, saw him doing this in front of a man dressed similarly to an MIB agent).
    • Patrick Warburton plays a not-too-bright agent who joined MIB because he wants to be a hero. His codename? "Agent T."
    • A lot of mentions were made of Serleena's ravenous appetite. One scene shows her scarfing down a massive burger. At the time the film was released, Lara Flynn Boyle was in the tabloids a lot because of her emaciated appearance, with a lot of gossips claiming she was starving herself. Like most starlets facing similar accusations, Boyle deflected it by claiming she was actually a Big Eater and just had a superfast metabolism.
    • When Kay sees the photo of himself at the restaurant, he says "That is a hell of a fish...". Tommy Lee Jones delivered the same line as Gerard in The Fugitive as he sees a picture of Sykes.
  • Adam Westing: Michael Jackson desperately wants to be an Agent. "I could be Agent M!"
  • Air Quotes: Peter Graves in the z-movie.
    Narrator: Here's one of their stories that "never happened", from one of their files that "doesn't exist".
  • Alternate Landmark History: The movie shows that the Statue of Liberty conceals a giant neuralizer device.
  • Amnesia Danger: The MIB need the memory-wiped Kay to come out of retirement to deal with the crisis at hand. And when he remembers being in MIB, it turns out he wiped his memory of the critical event, so they're still in trouble.
  • Amnesia Missed a Spot: Kay neuralyzed his own memories about his run in with Serleena and Lauranna, but watching the "reenactment" causes some of the memories to come to the fore.
    Kay: (softly) ... no. It was night...
  • Anal Probing: Sci-Fi nerd Newton, upon finding out what J and K actually do, raises the question, "What's up with anal probing?" J isn't having any of it.
    J: BOY, MOVE.
  • Apathetic Citizens: J is thrown through the window of a New York subway train shortly after attempting to sedate Jeffrey with a tranquilizer and immediately starts shouting at everyone to evacuate to the next car. The passengers ignore him until Jeffrey bites a chunk off the car. Once the crisis is resolved and the train limps to a stop in the station, he neuralyzes them and starts subliminally calling them out about this by pointing out that in an actual emergency, they would have been eaten. He is then forced to reneuralyze them once he realized that he was accidentally violating MIB's misinformation campaign to hide signs of aliens on Earth, now with a hilarious story requesting that they enjoy using new space-efficient, energy-saving cars.
  • Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking:
    • Serleena murders Ben after he refuses to divulge the location of the Light of Zartha. She also steals some of the pizza from his restaurant.
    • Jay tells Jaara he's under arrest for, among other things, "being that ugly" and making too many copies of himself.
  • Artistic License – Space: The film is set in July and K can see the Orion constellation. The only part of Earth where this is visible in July is south of the Antarctic Cirle.
  • As Himself: Peter Graves as the conspiracy narrator.
  • Ascended Extra: Frank the Pug and the worms from the first film, having gone from bit characters to supporting ones. This is likely because of the cartoon having given them more popularity.
  • Atmosphere Abuse: Since the ozone layer is part of the atmosphere, it's probably relevant that one of the alien criminals in the movie was convicted of stealing some of it to sell on the black market.
  • Awful Truth: Agent J asks Agent K why he didn't tell him that his new girlfriend was the key to stopping an interstellar war and had to leave. K's response: "Would you have let her go?" On a larger scale, this was part of the point of the Masquerade in the first place. Something about constant threat of The End of the World as We Know It being a bit much for most people to handle.
  • Balloon Belly: Serleena gets one after swallowing the mugger in the park whole, which she manages to get rid of by spitting him back out.
  • Balls of Steel: K is trying to fight off an alien with little success until J points out that that particular alien is impervious to groin attacks...because his balls are on his chin instead.
  • Beethoven Was an Alien Spy: Michael Jackson begs Z to let him be an Agent. It also implies that Martha Stewart (or possibly her cat) is actually an evil alien overlord.
  • Behind the Black: Happens when a hideous alien shapeshifting into a highly attractive woman clad only in her underwear is mugged mere seconds after all her weird tentacle things have retracted into her head. From a mugger who had apparently been standing a few feet behind her.
  • Berserk Button:
    • Don't pull on Jeff's flower head, or else he will go into an immense rampage across the city and the subway system.
    • Don't mention to K that his wife left him because he spends most of his time stargazing and wondering if there's more going on out there. Also something of a Callback to the first movie where he mentions how he left his girlfriend to become MIB.
  • Big Bad: Serleena.
  • Big Eater: Serleena. And not just a fully grown human. Numerous scenes have her carrying around fast food of some sort.
  • Big Little Man: Serleena's spacecraft, which flies around blowing up planets turns out to be smaller than a dog. And let's not forget how our entire universe is inside an airport locker.
  • Big Red Button: Don't press the one in J's car if you don't know what a PS1 controller is, and your mother never gave you a Game Boy...
    K: WHAT IS A GAMEBOY?!
  • Big Shadow, Little Creature: Serleena landing in a B-movie sci fi spacecraft, which is revealed to be the size of a styrofoam cup.
  • Biting-the-Hand Humor: When J sees the intro of the Z-movie about the light of Zartha, he says, that it "Looks like Spielberg's work." Doubles as Self-Deprecation, since he's also the producer of MIB 2.
  • Bittersweet Ending: Downplayed. While Serleena is successfully destroyed, Laura being the Light means she has to depart to Zartha to save both her own planet and Earth, in turn leaving behind both J who she'd fallen in love with and K who it turns out is probably the father she never knew she had. J while he accepts it also knows that it still hurts though. K while he enjoyed civilian life is also happy to be back with the MIB as well too.
  • Black Bra and Panties: The villain, a shapeshifting Alien, chooses a supermodel ad wearing a Black Bra and Panties to imitate and uses it to seduce other characters.
  • Black Comedy: Kay and Jay neuralyze the video store owner and his girlfriend, and one of their suggestions is for him to move out of his mom's attic. The scene ends with the store owner calling out for his mom after picking up a shovel he just happened to have...
  • Black Comedy Cannibalism: There is a joke of this nature in the opening scene. When the film's main villainess lands on earth she takes the form of a sexy lingerie model and gets jumped by a mugger who tells her she "tastes good" and drags her behind a bush. Suddenly we see the muggers feet fly into the air and hear him scream as she devours him alive. The woman then answers his "taste good" comment with "Yeah, you too."
  • Black-Hole Belly:
    • Serleena swallows a man at least a foot taller than her. Subverted in that she does gain a pretty large gut from doing so.
    • Towards the end of the film, after Serleena is consumed by Jeff, she devours him from the inside out and grows to a large size in mere minutes.
  • Booked Full of Mooks: J tracks down the now-retired and neuralyzed K, who works as a small town postmaster. In order to convince him that the Men in Black do exist, J reveals that every other worker in K's post office is an alien in disguise.
  • Brick Joke:
    • Early on, Zed has to deal with Michael Jackson pestering him to be an agent. After being taken hostage by Serleena, he tries distracting her by calling up Michael, who still wants to be an agent.
    • At the video store, the co-owner rambles about her theories, including one about how Caribbean resorts charging crab meals for $5 is a conspiracy. Once she and Newton are neuralyzed, Kay instructs them to go on vacation, buy a crab meal and pay more than $5.
  • Burp of Finality:
    • It's a little hard to hear amidst all the other sounds going on, but when Serleena swallows the mugger alive she gives a slight, low burp as she finishes.
    • Jeff, after eating Serleena. Turns out to be slightly less 'final' than Jay presumed.
  • But Now I Must Go: Laura departs for Zartha having found out that she's the Light and that they need her—and that if she doesn't leave, Earth gets destroyed by her bracelet too. In turn, she leaves J just after the two fell in love. Also, she's even learned K is probably her father too and she has to leave him as well.
  • Buxom Beauty Standard: Lampshaded by Serleena:
  • Bystander Syndrome: MIB headquarters is taken over, all the agents are tied up, but the guy reading the newspaper remains completely apathetic.
    Man reading newspaper: it's 'bout time you guys got here. That pretty lady in there's causing all kinds of hell.
  • Call-Back:
    • After K regains his memory, the constellation he stares at is Orion.
    • The diner J and T go to has a UFO in it. The movie's director says it's the same UFO that belonged to "Edgar" before it got taken by MIB.
  • Canon Marches On: The movie ignores the animated series where Agent J and Agent K continue to have adventures, and follows the ending of the first movie instead.
  • Casually Powerful Giant: When a still amnesiac K is being given a tour of MIB headquarters, he pokes a curious finger into a floating sphere about the size of a golf ball. Inside the sphere, we see the tiny civilization inside panicking as a tsunami is about to come crashing down on them. J then scolds K to not touch anything.
Tiny Alien: "All hope is lost!"
  • Canon Immigrant: Among other shout outs to the cartoon, the deneuralyzer.
  • Cargo Cult: A race of tiny aliens living in a rental locker worship a watch that K left behind. When K retrieves this watch, J replaces it with his own, becoming a new deity for the locker people. They also treat a video rental card as if it were the Ten Commandments, interpreting the words in their own way. For example, "Be kind! Rewind!" is seen as "Reconcile your past in order to move into your future!" and "Two for one every Wednesday" means "Give twice as much as ye receive on our most sacred of days. Every Wednesday." Unfortunately, things start to get nasty with "Large adult entertainment section in the back."
  • Ceiling Cling: When J, K, and the worm guys take the elevator down into the MIB HQ after Serleena takes it over, the elevator is met by a gun-toting robot that pumps dozens of bullets into the elevator as the doors open. It then turns out that the elevator's occupants are all doing a ceiling cling to avoid being hit.
  • Chekhov's Gun:
    • The dodgy z-movie that begins the film, which Kay and Jay later use to find clues about the Light.
    • The watch from the locker that Kay mentions he's been looking everywhere for seems to serve little purpose other than to inform our heroes how much time they have left to solve the case. At the end of the movie it turns out it's also the activation switch for the giant neuralyzer in the Statue of Liberty's torch. Jay immediately declares that he wants one after seeing it in action.
  • Chekhov's Gunman: Jeff, who gets an action sequence devoted to him at the beginning of the movie, and comes back at the climax.
  • Consuming Passion: Serleena, full stop. Every time she brings up eating someone (and that someone is always a member of the opposite sex) there is always a sexual edge to it. A couple parts that stand out in particular are when she licks K's face and the mugger scene. The way it starts with her in barely there lingerie and high heels. The mugger telling her she tastes good, and the way she turns the tables on the guy and eats him before shooting back with a "yeah, you too" are all played for Fanservice as well as horror and humor.
  • Creator Cameo:
    • Barry Sonnenfeld (with his wife and daughter) as the family in the apartment K and J raid for weapons.
    • Rick Baker, the special effects artist for these films, has a cameo as an MIB agent at immigration. He's the one with a ponytail who's helping explain an alien's disguise.
  • Crossing the Burnt Bridge: After Sarleena's attack on MIB headquarters forces J and an amnesiac K to evacuate, turns out that the only one with a deneuralizer to help bring back K's memories is Jeebes, the nebbish alien pawnshop owner who K had shot in the first movie, so K and J end up having to go to him to get his help. Jeebes, understandably is less-than-inclined to help the two...at least until J shoves a blaster in his face and makes it clear that the bridge is officially rebuilt and Jeebes will help them with a smile on his face.
  • Cruel and Unusual Death:
    • Serleena devouring the mugger alive is a pretty horrific sight by itself, but then you stop and imagine what exactly is happening to the poor bastard inside of her stomach.
    • Serleena uses one of her tentacles to slice through the skin suit of another Alien and apparently vaporizes him, leaving nothing but the two halves of his Human disguise.
    • Seerlena kills Jeff by eating him from the inside after she gets tricked into getting Swallowed Whole by the latter.
  • Cut the Juice: J orders the power to the facility be cut in order to cancel Serleena's flight with Laura and the light of Zartha, but the plan ended up proving to be unnecessary after J managed to stop the launch sequence at the last second.
  • Deadly Upgrade: Serleena, after she infected Jeff.
  • Death by Gluttony: Jeff swallows Serleena toward the end of the movie, but she devours him from the inside out and bursts from his belly as a gigantic worm shortly after.
  • Detachment Combat: There's an alien who starts out looking like a single tall humanoid. But when it begins to fight Agent Jay, it turns into five or six smaller aliens that fly around and attack Agent Jay by dive-bombing him.
  • Dialogue Reversal: There's an example that evokes a dialogue from the first movie:
    • In the previous movie, as James Edwards was being initiated by Agent Kay into the titular organization, there was this exchange:
      Zed: Edwards, let's put it on.
      Edwards: Put what on?
      Zed: The last suit you'll ever wear.
    • In this movie, when Kay, reverted back to Kevin Brown, was called out of retirement:
      Jay: Let's put it on.
      Kevin: Put what on?
      Jay: The last suit you'll ever wear... again.
  • Did Not Get the Girl:
    • K's wife Elizabeth is revealed to have left him because even though he'd left his life as an agent behind and totally forgotten it all, he still felt that unknown attachment that she could never understand or ever even realize was there. Also, years before that, K develops a relationship with Princess Laurana—to the point that he's likely Laura's father—and this ends when Serleeena murders her.
    • Laura is forced to depart to Zartha once she's revealed to be the Light and that it'll save both that planet and Earth, meaning she leaves behind J while doing so too. Also since J was implied to be romantically involved with Laurel/L in the last film, that means her deciding to leave the MIB and go back to her old life as a mortician means they didn't stay together either.
  • Dinner and a Breakup: A platonic version. Deciding his partnership with T isn't working out, J takes him to eat pie at a diner, planning to neuralyze him and erase his memories. T realizes and starts blubbering, even as he points out J is doing it in public to keep him from making a scene. J goes through with it, returns T to his civilian identity, and encourages a waitress to hook up with T before he leaves.
  • Disney Death:
    • Variation. When J attempts to establish a communication channel with Frank, he gives Frank an order, but his transmission was cut inexplicably, leading the worms and Frank (and initially the audience) to think that J and K were shot down and killed by Serleena. However, it later becomes apparent that J and K survived, but the earlier shot only disabled their communications, thus explaining why the transmission ended.
    • Serleena herself gets a pretty notable one too. During the chase at the end she flies into the giant alien worm Jeffrey's mouth and she gets eaten. It seems like this will be the last we see of her. Unfortunately she comes bursting out of Jeff's body and is now as big as he was.
  • Don't Touch It, You Idiot!: An Ironic Echo occurs when Agent J says this when Agent K, having been neuralized in the previous film, touches a small round object, which turns out to be a tiny planet.
  • Dramatically Delayed Drug: After T manages to provoke Jeffrey into a rampage across the New York subway tunnels with his Cowboy Cop antics, J attempts to pacify the giant worm by injecting him with a tranquilizer, only for Jeff to punt J into a train and try to eat it. It's not until Jeff has eaten 3/4 of the train and J has threatened to shoot him does the tranquilizer finally take effect, several minutes later. For good measure, during an angry call to MIB headquarters, J can be heard asking if someone can check the expiration date on unipod worm tranquilizers.
  • Driving Question: What really happened during the MIB's original confrontation with Serleena back in the 1970s? And if the Light of Zathrat's still on Earth and has been all along, then why would K have lied to Zed about taking care of it (let alone why would K leave clues about the Light behind in case he needed to remember)?
  • Earth-Shattering Kaboom: The beginning of the film shows Serleena destroying planets as she passes by. Even more amazing when the viewers find out that the ship is not even a foot tall.
  • Eaten Alive: Serleena is capable of eating other lifeforms twice her size, and she even swallows a Human whole in the intro. Towards the end of the film she is herself swallowed by a giant worm named Jeff. It only stops her temporarily, as she devours him from the inside and becomes a giant worm herself.
  • Eldritch Abomination: Serleena's true form. Well, a very small one, but still... She becomes gigantic at the film's climax.
  • Elevator Action Sequence: Happens when Jay, Kay, and the worms raid MIB headquarters to confront Serleena. When they take the elevator down to the main level, a robot starts firing aimlessly into the elevator, while the heroes are hiding on the ceiling. When the robot runs out of bullets initially, Jay uses that chance to get out of the elevator and make his way down to save Laura, and the worms climb out the top to reach the power controls. Kay then attracts the robot into the elevator, hits the close button, drops a bomb, swings out, and lets the bomb detonate inside with just the robot getting caught in the blast.
  • Emergency Stash: J and K access an emergency stash of weapons after the MiB HQ is in Lock Down. The people who live where the weapons are stored have no idea they are there.
  • Empathic Environment: It begins to rain at the end of the film, as the Light of Zartha begins crying as her ship leaves. It always rains when she cries. Or more accurately, it rains because she's sad.
  • Empty Elevator: J, K and the worm guys arrive back at MIB Central, and the garbage can robot neatly peppers the elevator they arrive in with bullets... but they're all doing a Ceiling Cling.
  • Establishing Character Moment: Serleena's introductory scene features her shapeshifting into a gorgeous lingerie model, devouring a man alive, then making a pithy comeback to a comment the man had made about her "tast[ing] good." All this 1. Establishes her shapeshifting powers, 2. The fact that she's a Proud Beauty, 3. How dangerous she is and her big appetite, especially for human males, 4. Her Deadpan Snarker tendencies.
  • Evil Is Petty: The opening credits show Serleena destroying planets she passed by. Also, when K makes her think he launched the Light off the planet decades ago, she briefly doubles back just to shoot and kill Laurana out of spite.
  • Exposition Beam: The Deneuralizer, which undoes what the Neuralizer does.
  • Extremely Short Timespan: Takes place mostly in one night.
  • Fake Faint: Scrad and Charlie pretend to collapse after seeing Serleena flash her bra in order to create a distraction while she infests MIB headquarters.
  • Fan Disservice: Serleena in just her underwear, right after she's eaten someone alive, leaving her stomach unrealistically bulging out.
  • Fanservice: Rosario Dawson's presence, though it's kind of dwarfed by having Lara Flynn Boyle playing as an alien that disguises herself as an underwear model in leather.
  • Feet-First Introduction: Serleena's introduction as she shapeshifts into a human disguise starts by focusing on her high heel shoes, then slowly panning up her legs and lingerie clad body, before she gets jumped by a mugger who she promptly eats.
  • Fisher King: Laura is a mild example. When she is sad it starts raining. At the end when she leaves Earth for good we see her spaceship is full of rain.
  • Forbidden Chekhov's Gun: Jay uses "Pressed the Red Button" as a type of code, indicating that it is reserved only for the biggest emergencies. They seem to prefer to not even use the neuralyzer if they don't have to, so going for a rocket car ride would likely be a last ditch number on their list of priorities.
  • Forgot the Call: K got tired of working, and asked to be neuralyzed. The first half of the second movie is spent trying to get his memory back due to him knowing a Plot Coupon he also forgot.

    Tropes G to M 
  • Gaia's Lament: Jarra was arrested by Jay for trying to steal Earth's ozone. He treats this like a hysterical overreaction.
  • Getting Eaten Is Harmless:
    • Serleena. At the climax she accidentally flies her ship into Jeff's mouth and he eats her. In spite of the giant worm having rows of teeth running all the way to the back of his throat and devouring her with lots and lots of chewing, she winds up eating him from the inside out, allowing her to become a giant version of her true form.
    • Averted at the start of the film when Serleena swallows a mugger alive. She regurgitates him shortly after, but it's made clear that he didn't survive.
  • Ghostly Glide: The tall, conical alien Jarra moves like this, though more for extraterrestrial reasons.
  • Given Name Reveal: When J is reunited with K, who'd retired to civilian life after the first film, he sees that K's full name is Kevin Brown.
  • Gory Discretion Shot: When a mugger grabs Serleena in Central Park, he drags her behind a bush with pretty obvious intentions. Said bush ends up obscuring what happens next, when Serleena devours the Human alive, although how she does it is assumed to be extremely horrifying. All that we do see are his legs helplessly kicking as he's swallowed whole.
  • Gray Rain of Depression: Used literally when the Light of Zartha leaves Earth.
  • Great Offscreen War: It was mentioned that the Kylothians and the Zarthans have been at war for over fifty years but it was unknown if the war resulted in victory or defeat for either side.
  • The Greatest Story Never Told:
    • J tells K that MIB work is not for people who want to be a hero, as the inherent secrecy of the job means that no recognition will ever come. He makes a point of mentioning James Edwards (his now-erased civilian identity), who saved dozens of lives in the subway that night and will never be thanked for it because nobody remembers that he even exists.
    • The aliens living in a locker in Grand Central Station. Somehow, a race of small aliens built an entire town inside a locker in the terminal, and they view Kay as The Messiah who left his watch and a business card from a video store with them, and they turned its words into religious gospel. Nothing about this is explained, Kay just takes his stuff from them and leaves, and even he has no idea who they are, how they know him, or what they're doing living in a locker in the middle of Grand Central Station. But apparently they've been there for thirty-five years waiting for him to return.
  • Groin Attack:
    • "K, he's a Ballchinian!"
    • Also heavily implied to be what Frank the Pug (then known as Agent Eff) attempted to do when he was laughed at by a fellow agent.
  • Growling Gut: Serleena's stomach can be heard noisily churning and sloshing with each step she takes as it digests the mugger she's just Swallowed Whole.
  • Half the Man He Used to Be: One of the Worms gets sliced in half by Serleena, but he's fortunately able to reattach himself with no problem.
  • Happy Ending Override: In between movies, K's wife left him and L went back to her old life.
  • Hidden in Plain Sight:
  • Hidden Supplies: With Jay and Kay separated from MIB headquarters, they go to an apartment Kay apparently used to live in to stock up on alien weaponry in a hidden room.
  • Hilarious Outtakes: Particularly an extended outtake in which director Barry Sonnenfeld keeps calling a stand-in by the wrong name, much to the amusement of the actors.
    Barry Sonnenfeld: Derek, can you try to—
    Will Smith: Who the fuck is Derek?!
  • Horror Doesn't Settle for Simple Tuesday: The movie is implied to have started on July 4 (the film's release date).
  • How Did You Know? I Didn't: After being put in the deneuralyzer, Kay blasts Jeebs with the Noisy Cricket. He hasn't gotten his memory back yet. Good thing Jeebs' head regrows...
    J: You're back.
    K: No.
    J: How'd you know his head grows back?
    K: It grows back?
  • Hypocritical Humor: Serleena's thugs giggle when Jay insults one of their number for looking like crap. They're much less amused when he says they look like crap as well.
  • Idiot Ball: A few people pick it up throughout the movie. Agent T seems to be stupid personified, at least by MIB standards. ddenInSerleena seems to play sports with it; she takes a long ass time talking to K, whom she has at her mercy, instead of killing him. Oh, and when she finally has Laura in a spaceship ready to go, what does she do? Set it at a conveniently long countdown instead of just 3,2,1 blast off.
  • I Have Boobs, You Must Obey!: Serleena comments, "Silly little planet. I could rule the place with the right set of mammary glands."
  • I Know Mortal Kombat: Spoofed; the only way to control the Cool Car manually while in flight is with a PlayStation gamepad; Jay has no problems with it, but Kay, being a Cool Old Guy who was with the MiB since its founding in The '50s, well...
    Jay: Didn't your mother ever buy you a GameBoy?
    Kay: WHAT THE HELL IS A GAMEBOY?!
  • I'm a Humanitarian: Serleena seems to enjoy eating human males, just ask that poor guy who saw her in her underwear.
  • Immortality Hurts: Jeebs looks a little worse for wear in comparison to the first movie. According to the fillmakers, not all parts grow back the same. In the animated series, Jeebs's brother shows up at one point and reveals that, in his family, blasting each other means "Hello", although it's usually Jeebs who gets blasted.
  • I Was Never Here: J and K are watching an episode of an old show that is describing something that happened to K years before. At the end of the episode, they see "You saw nothing" on the recording.
    This is a story that "never happened", from one of their files that "doesn't exist".
  • Jump Scare: The abrupt way Jeebs' head explodes after they de-neuralyze Agent K feels like this.
    Jeebs:(in a high pitch voice when his mouth grows back) Real nice.
    (His voice grows deeper as his face turns back to normal)
    Jeebs: Okay, that's the last time I help out a friend!
    * Just Desserts:
    • During the climax, Serleena gets Eaten Alive by Jeff the Worm.
    • This happens earlier in the movie where Serleena eats a mugger who tried to mug or possibly rape her.
  • Karmic Death: The mugger who attacks Serleena gets swallowed alive by the very woman he tried to sexually assault.
  • Killer Rabbit:
    • Frank.
      Frank: Got kids?
      Agent: [who was laughing at him] No.
      Frank: Want 'em? [growls]
      [scene switches to J as frank mauls the other agent off-camera]
    • Serleena's true form is pretty tiny (heck, even when she takes on human form, she's only 5'6). Doesn't stop her from being dangerous, though.
  • Kill It Through Its Stomach: Serleena is tricked into flying down Jeff the giant worm-creature's gullet, but grows large enough to burst out of him for a final battle with J.
  • Lamprey Mouth: Jeff has a huge one, while Serleena's got hundreds on her individual tendrils.
  • Laser-Guided Amnesia: Kay, having been neuralyzed. And in the past as well, to hide the truth of the Light even further.
  • Leaning on the Fourth Wall: When Agent J says, “Looks like Spielberg’s work”, it’s a shoutout to Spielberg, who is an executive producer in this franchise.
  • Lecherous Licking:
    • A mugger licks Serleena's face before she swallows him.
    • Serleena sticks her tongue in Agent K's ear.
  • Let Me Get This Straight...: J is having a hard time grasping K's plan regarding the erasure of his memories of the Light.
Agent J: Run over your plan one more time, 'cause I'm struggling with it. You neuralised your memory of the Light but left yourself clues. A photo pointing to a key in a pizzeria which opens a locker at Grand Central. In the locker, we'll find another clue.
Agent K: I like to keep my enemies confused.
Agent J: We're all confused, K.
  • Letters 2 Numbers: The film's name is abbreviated MIIB. Though this obviously leads itself to redundancy—men in in black? Are they wearing two layers of clothing?
  • Lighter and Softer: To the point of parody. The original comic was much, much darker. It is also lighter than the first film.
  • Lingerie Scene:
    • In an early scene, Serleena is in the middle of Central Park wearing nothing but said lingerie which winds up attracting a mugger. He tries attacking her but she immediately turns the tables on him and devours him alive.
    • Serleena is passing through security at MIB headquarters. When she's asked for the reason for her visit to Earth she opens her coat and replies: "I'm hoping to become an underwear model. They say I have real potential." then knocks out the guards while they're gaping at her lingerie-clad body.
  • Linked List Clue Methodology: Most of the film consists of K trying to regain his memories through a list of clues that he left for himself.
  • Literal Man Eater: Serleena. The "man" part is particularly emphasized because she seems to express interest in eating the male characters the most.
  • Living Macguffin: Kay, since he's the only one who knows the details of the Light's location. And Laura, being the Light itself.
  • Lockdown: During the film, the MIB HQ goes into Code 101 Lockdown.
  • Loud Gulp: Among the many sounds accompanying the scene of Serleena devouring her would-be mugger alive and whole is a heavy swallowing sound, which is presumably her finishing up eating him.
  • Low Clearance: Played for laughs when Jay is trying to subdue the giant worm alien in the subway tunnel. He's riding along on top of it and having to duck light fixtures and various other objects.
  • Luke, I Might Be Your Father: It's heavily implied K is Laura/The Light of Zartha's birth-father.
  • MacGuffin Blindness: Jay spent the entire movie looking for the Light of Zartha, not realizing that he'd been hanging out with her throughout the entire movie.
  • MacGuffin-Person Reveal: Most of the movie is spent looking for the Light of Zartha, which turns out to be a Human Alien (and J's Love Interest).
  • Mandatory Unretirement: Kay gets called back because he has information even he doesn't know he has.
  • Memory Gambit: Kay can't remember where he stashed away the MacGuffin, and reasons that he must have neuralized himself to avoid disclosing its location, after placing clues that would lead him (and only him) to it.
  • Memory Wipe Exploitation: After Agent J saves the subway passengers from being eaten by a giant worm and the train stops at the next station, he neuralyzes them and starts chewing them out for ignoring his warnings and only evacuating to the next train car once the worm had started eating the train. He then reneuralyzes them once he realizes that he's carried on for far too long and tells them a story requesting that they enjoy using new space-efficient, energy-saving cars.
  • Miranda Rights: Jay does a variation to Jeffrey, the giant worm, during its rampage through the subway:
    Agent Jay: "You have the right to remain ugly. You have the right to have your squirmy, extraterrestrial butt put in a sling for whiplashing me into that fruit stand and getting mashed banana all over my shirt. With the full powers vested in me as an agent of MIB, I hereby place you under arrest. Now pull your wiggly-ass self over!"
  • Morton's Fork: Jeebs doesn't want to deneuralyze K because if it doesn't work, they'll blow off his head, and if it does, K is back and will probably blow off his head for the fun of it. He asks why would he risk either option, which is answered with a gun to his head.
  • Multi-Armed Multitasking: The mail-sorting alien. He also appears in the music video for "Black Suits Comin' (Nod Ya Head)" by Will Smith, where he is seen transmitting the show all across the galaxy.
  • Multi-Directional Barrage: The robot near the end of the film does this with what appear to be submachine guns.
  • Mugging the Monster: Serleena is attacked by a mugger just one second after she takes on the form of an underwear model. Somehow, he managed not to notice the underwear model was a mass of worms and ivy, presumably because he was offscreen. Or, since the rest of her scantily clad form was finished, and only some of her face and hair were unfinished right before he attacked, he most likely wasn't looking at her head. As a reward for his ignorance, he gets eaten.
  • Mythology Gag:
    • The diner J and T go to has a UFO in it. It's a mythology gag to the animated series, where a UFO crashed into a diner, and after neuralizing the owners, J congratulated them on their new decoration.
    • When the man reading the newspaper expresses his gladness about J and K returning to the MIB headquarters after Serleena locked it down, the headlines state that Satan has returned to Earth. In the original comic of the Men in Black, besides tracking aliens, the MIB also tracked down demons and supernatural entities.

    Tropes N to S 
  • Naïve Newcomer: K, when J tries to bring him back. J gets exasperated when he keeps poking everything.
  • The Napoleon: Serleena, technically, given her true form is a little worm.
  • Nasal Trauma: Serleena tortures Scrad and Charlie for information by threading her tendrils into their noses - in one nostril and out the other, from one head to the next. In an amusing twist, this doesn't just cause them significant pain, but it actually makes them speak in Helium Speech.
  • Neck Lift: Serleena grabs and lifts the pizza shop owner (actually an undercover alien guarding the Light of Zartha) by the chin.
  • Never Recycle a Building: It hasn't been abandoned, but the video-rental store that holds a vital clue in Men in Black II is still there after twenty-five years, even though most people moved on to DVDs years ago. Of course, the protagonists are part of an organisation who conduct passive Mind Rape on people, so this might explain why they never switched to DVD along with everyone else. They might also be the reason that place is still in business...
  • Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: J neuralyzes Newton in his mother's attic, and gives him an instruction to not live with his mother, as he was a middle-aged man. It is heavily implied (by him calling for his mother while brandishing a shovel) that he kills her to follow this instruction from J.
  • Non Sequitur Environment: The film ends with K opening a perfectly normal door in MIB headquarters (on Earth) and inviting J and Frank to take a look: on the other side of the door, they're seen to be standing in a locker high above a massive spaceport concourse dominated by giant aliens.
  • Noodle Incident:
    • J saved the world from a Crelon invasion. K isn't impressed.
      K: Oh, please, Crelons are the Backstreet Boys of the universe. What'd they do, throw snowballs at you?
    • MIB Customs ends up with an alien corpse in it because of something a rookie agent did.
  • Normal Fish in a Tiny Pond: An entire species of aliens fits into a train station locker. They revere the main characters as gods; they see a light-up watch in the locker as a holy light, and they consider a business card that was put in there to be a religious text. As in the first film, this situation is turned around, as it is revealed at the end of the movie that an entrance to our world leads to another processing station... for aliens as big as skyscrapers. The second film also contains this exchange:
    J: While you were licking stamps, I saved the world from a Kreelon invasion.
    K: The Kreelons are the Backstreet Boys of the universe. What'd they do, throw snowballs?
  • Oddly Overtrained Security: J re-recruits K from his retirement at a post office. The retiree deals with a spilled coffee by issuing orders like he's containing a nuclear breach. This scene does admittedly take place in the sorting room, and getting spilled coffee all over someone else's mail is a great way to get yourself in a whole hell of a lot of trouble, but it definitely hints to J that his old partner might not be entirely happy in retirement.
  • Once Done, Never Forgotten: Jay has gotten a reputation of neuralyzing people on a whim, and Zed won't stop chastising him for it.
  • One-Winged Angel: Serleena's final takeover of the subway alien.
  • Orbital Bombardment: In the title sequence, Serleena's starship blows up several planets for no apparent reason, outside of not having The Light, on her way to Earth.
  • Organ Dodge: Played for Laughs. After Kay regains his memory, he starts fighting the aliens attacking Jay and tries for a Groin Attack on one of them. The alien shrugs it off, only for Jay to yell, "Kay, he's a Ballchinnian!" Kay consequently aims higher the second time.
  • Orphaned Punchline:
    • "Rectum? Damn near killed 'em" by the worms.
    • When J is attempting to establish a channel with Frank during their chase with Serleena, Frank the Pug says to the Worm with a cigar in his mouth "So I said 'Listen, bitch! If you don't want me to kick your skinny, zone-diet ass, I suggest you turn tail and leave the planet!'"
  • Pin-Pulling Teeth: While K is doing a Ceiling Cling in the MIB headquarters elevator, he uses his teeth to pull the pin from a grenade and drops it beside the combat robot that is trying to kill him. He swings out of the elevator and, after the door closes, the grenade destroys the robot.
  • Product Placement: Burger King and Ebay are prominent. Serleena chooses her new form based on a Victoria's Secret ad she finds in an "I Love New York" magazine.
  • Profiling: A line about DWB (Driving While Black); the car's stoic autopilot decoy "came with a black dude, but he kept getting pulled over".
  • Pre-Mortem One-Liner:
    • J to Serleena: "Your flight's been canceled," although she gets better... temporarily.
    • A mugger gives one to Serleena in the form of "Hey pretty lady, you taste good," right before dragging her behind a bush. She throws it back at him after easily overpowering him and ravenously swallowing him alive.
  • Pulling Themselves Together: The villainess has captured the damsel and apparently killed her guardians, the worms. J and K find them lying in pieces in their apartment — then they wake up, start grumbling, and drag themselves over to their lower halves to reattach them.
  • Punctuated! For! Emphasis!:
  • Race Lift: Happens in-universe, oddly enough; the Lauranna seen in the "Mysteries in History" segment that opens the film is depicted as a blonde-haired Caucasian woman, but the real Lauranna seen in K's flashback looks like an Asian woman.
  • Race Against Time: Downplayed, if subverted when Zed and J realize that if the Light of Zathra's still on Earth, then only the now-amnesiac K can answer provide answers about the original incident. Zed also realizes Serleena will have come to the same conclusion and will be seeking him out, meaning J has to get to him first. J does without any problems (hence the subversion).
  • Recursive Reality: The film shows a world inside a locker where K's watch is a symbol of worship, then at the end, K shows J that their world is also simply inside a larger locker. An alternate ending has J going on vacation and ending up on the world inside the locker and the size of its inhabitants, implying some sort of change in size when you go through the locker door, or that the lockers are more of a Portal Network.
  • Red Herring: J (and the viewer) are led to believe that the Light of Zartha was Laura's bracelet. Actually, the bracelet was a time bomb activated to blow up with enough explosive power to destroy the planet (presumably as a means to avoid the villain from gaining it on Earth). The real Light of Zartha was actually Laura herself.
  • Rubber Orifice: While not directly shown on screen, it's implied this is how Serleena is able to swallow men whole judging from some of the sounds during the mugger scene and her bulging belly after dining on him. Storyboard sketches show that this would have originally been more explicitly shown before they decided to obscure her eating him behind a bush.
  • Rule of Perception: The ropey alien disguises are supposedly Invisible to Normals, but MIBs are fully able to spot them. Lampshaded in this movie when freshly deneuralysed K starts seeing them for himself. We see even more in the third movie.
  • Same Plot Sequel: J recruiting K was largely a role reversal from the first film of a veteran trying to bring a new recruit up to speed, while also trying to repeat similar gags like the noisy cricket and give larger roles to Frank and the Worms. The main villain is also a shapeshifter with a monstrous One-Winged Angel form, looking for a MacGuffin that is not as obvious as we think it is.
  • Sacrificial Planet: The opening credits show an alien spaceship flying through space and destroying every planet it passes. It then lands on Earth and get peed on by a dog that's larger than the ship.
  • Sand Worm: Jeff, though he uses tunnels which are already built (the NYC subway).
  • Sci-Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale: Averted. Serleena at one point asks for a spacecraft that can travel 300 times the speed of light. To put it into perspective, this speed would get you to Proxima Centauri, our nearest star (after the Sun, of course), in 5.13 days. Still hardly the instant travel across the universe we always see in sci-fi, but at least the writers made an effort.
  • Sequel Non-Entity: Laurel gets mentioned once in passing just to "explain" why she isn't with them.
  • Sequel Reset: The first movie ended with K happily retired, all MIB memories erased and given a chance to start things over with the love of his life. J, meanwhile, became K's replacement and got a new partner of his own in Agent L. The sequel drops L (her absence is merely Hand Waved) and brings back the amnesic K. Thing is, once his memories are restored, the same character dynamic from the first movie is repeated, despite J having five years of experience.
  • Sexy Coat Flashing: Serleena really wants to become an underwear model (but not before infesting MIB headquarters).
    Serleena: (while unbuttoning her top) They tell me I've got great potential.
  • Shout-Out: In the beatboxing scene, the second of Agent J's beatboxes is from "La Di Da Di" by Slick Rick.
  • Signed Up for the Dental: Zed explains to Frank that he'll get better dental as Zed's assistant than as a field agent. Since Frank is canid (at least in appearance while on Earth), this works for him.
  • Small, Secluded World: One of K's lockers is an entire world to small aliens, but then in the stinger we realize that our entire world is a locker to other aliens. Or something.
  • Speed Demon: One scene has an alien in a post office sorting out the mail very quickly while "Speed Demon" by Keel plays in the background.
  • Starfish Language: J communicates with an alien played by Biz Markie with beatboxing. Complete with exasperated expressions from J and smug smirks from the alien.
  • Stargazing Scene:The memory-wiped K finally gets said memory back after looking up at the stars, knowing that there's more out there.
  • Stylistic Suck: The 'movie' that begins the film is intentionally as crummy as humanly possible, right down to poor editing and overly dramatic narrating, with Serleena being portrayed as an actor in a costume subdued by the MIB using butterfly nets.
  • Summon Bigger Fish: While being chased by Serleena, J leads her into the subway tunnels and straight to Jeffrey, who swallows her whole. It only works temporarily.
  • Super Multipurpose Room: K has a cache of weapons hidden in his old apartment, which is now someone else's home. They have to neuralize this family in order to access it.
  • Swallowed Whole:
    • Serleena to a would-be rapist.
    • Jeff to Serleena and her ship.

    Tropes T to Z 
  • Thank the Maker: The locker aliens consider Kay their God for supplying them with the light of his digital watch. Then they consider Jay their God when he gives them a new one after Kay takes his back...
  • There Are No Therapists: Apparently Newton is seeing a therapist for his conspiracy theorising. According to his girlfriend, it's not helping.
  • Third Eye: One of the alien thugs has a "pineal eye" hidden under his hat that is his species' Achilles' Heel.
  • This Is Gonna Suck: Jay's reaction to being bent is less "I'm gonna be killed" and more annoyance.
    Jay: Naw, man, don't bend him!
  • Toilet Humor: The deneuralyzer room in the MIB HQ is shaped like a toilet bowl. When Serleena attacks MIB HQ, they are literally "flushed out".
  • Toilet Teleportation: Parodied when Jay and Kay have to be "flushed" from headquarters. They're not flushed out through an actual toilet... just something that looks like one.
  • Too Much Information: K, Frank, and Zed all talk about their own sexual experiences with aliens at the end to cheer J up after his Love Interest was revealed to be one and forced to return home, much to J's disgust.
    J: [pointing at Frank] No advice. [pointing at K] No talking. [pointing at Zed] ...HELL no.
  • To Serve Man: Serleena's preferred way of killing people, although she has other methods, like using her tentacles. She can swallow a man-sized victim whole even though she isn't much bigger.
  • Totem Pole Trench: Jarra is revealed to be a small figure in a saucer along with his three small companions.
  • Transformation Discretion Shot: A triple dose of this occurs in the intro: Serleena initially starts out as a small green plant/worm creature that landed in the middle of Central Park; then, after she encounters a discarded magazine with a Victoria's Secret advert, countless little tendrils start to pour out of her mouth and take on new shapes until they all but envelop the screen - before we cut back to the magazine. Then we cut to a Feet-First Introduction and slow pan up her new form, a woman in high heels and black lingerie based on the model in the advert. Then a rapist makes the mistake of dragging her behind a bush, only to be brutally eaten alive before he can even try anything; seconds later, Seerlena walks back into view with a huge Balloon Belly. Quickly realizing that her new disguise is causing problems, she walks back behind the bush, audibly pukes up the dead rapist, and walks back into view with her belly normal-sized again - only this time she's carrying her victim's clothes.
  • Truce Zone: This is the reason why the MIB cannot safeguard the Light of Zartha from Serleena, since it would technically break Earth's neutrality, so Kay does so in secret and erases his memory of the incident.
  • Unexplained Recovery: Newton, the secretary for the city morgue from the first movie, appears in the sequel as a video store associate, despite seemingly dying in the previous one.
  • Unstoppable Rage: After J's new recruit foolishly tries to pull on Jeffrey (the subway alien's) flower, to put it simply, he's extremely P.O.'ed, and starts lashing out at everything, including J, and then rampaging across the Subway tunnels. He eventually calms down after J attempts to threaten to blast him if he doesn't calm down, and presumably also due to the tranquilizer that he injected earlier finally going into effect after the slight delay.
  • Unusually Uninteresting Sight:
    • J can't clear a subway car he just crashed into because everyone dismisses him as just a New York nut. At least they get moving when a giant worm starts eating the car.
    • The mugger/would-be rapist doesn't find anything odd about a beautiful woman hanging around Central Park in the dead of the night, by herself, wearing nothing but her lingerie and high heel shoes.
  • Villainesses Want Heroes: Serleena flirts with Zed while she has him at her mercy, and apparently has had a crush on him ever since the last time she was on Earth. Tellingly, she didn't kill him after he called her "a squirmy pile of crap in a different wrapper" and trying to attack her, and only gave him a swift knock out.
  • Villainous Crush: Serleena has a thing for Zed, which might explain why she didn't try to kill him during their fight. Unfortunately for her, the feelings aren't mutual.
  • Villainous Glutton: Not only does Serleena kill most victims by eating them, she eats any leftover food she finds at the scenes of her kills, including hamburgers and pizza. Clearly, she's Obsessed with Food, as her entire species are implied to be.
  • Vomit Discretion Shot: Serleena, who is currently walking around in nothing but a bra and panties, devours a guy who accosted her with a knife. However, after she ate him she wound up with a massive gut so she hides behind a bush and barfs him up and steals his clothes, which for some reason fit her.
  • Wall of Weapons: There's a wall of weapons stashed behind the wall of Agent Kay's old apartment. It comes in handy for the heroes when they are stuck outside of MIB headquarters.
  • Weaponized Landmark: The Statue of Liberty. Sort of. There's actually a giant neuralyzer in the torch. Also a nod to the animated series episode "The Fmall, Fmall, Fmall World Syndrome", which showed the Empire State Building has a neuralyzer, dubbed "the Big One", built into the lightning rod.
  • What Does This Button Do?: In the original, K's car has the little red button. In this one, J's car has two - one that turns it into a jet, the other deploys a dummy to look like the car is being driven by someone. Used to hilarious effect twice:
    K: That come standard?
    J: Well, it came with a black dude, but he kept gettin' pulled over.
  • What Happened to the Mouse?: Scrad and Charlie kind of just... disappear halfway through the film. In the novelization, it's revealed the two defected from Serleena and helped J and K defeat her. K later gave them jobs at the post office he worked in, much to the two's delight.
  • When the Clock Strikes Twelve: If the Light of Zartha is not removed from the Earth by midnight, it will self destruct and destroy the planet.
  • When Things Spin, Science Happens: The machine to restore Agent K's memories spins around.
  • White Void Room: The Deneuralyzing Room.
  • Why Am I Ticking?: The Light of Zartha's bracelet.
  • The Worm That Walks: Serleena, at least while in human form.
  • You Taste Delicious:
    • While the villainess was talking to K, she stuck her tongue in his ear.
    • These were actually the first words Serleena heard after landing on Earth and assuming a human form, when a would-be mugger/rapist licks the side of her face. Her reply?
      Serleena: Yeah, you too.
  • You Were Trying Too Hard: At the pizzeria, when J realizes the photograph is pointing at something, which seems to be another photo pointing at something, which was ultimately... a cabinet full of sardines. K, however, sees the first photo is pointing at a key hanging from the wall.
    K: I hope I'm not slowing you down, partner...
  • Zeerust: Jeebs' de-neuralyzer is distinctly less advanced than what was previously shown.


 
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Video Example(s):

Alternative Title(s): Men In Black 2

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I Want One Of Those!

After dealing with Serleena, K and J head back to MiB Headquarters to help clean up the mess left behind, but before they do that J points out that they need to find a way to erase everybodys memories after seeing what just happened over New York Harbor.

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5 (14 votes)

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Main / WeaponizedLandmark

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