"Men in Black II" 
PG-13, 2002 
Starring Tommy Lee Jones & Will Smith

Roles are reversed in "Men in Black II" (MIBII), because in this episode, Agent 
J is the experienced intergalactic cop, while Agent K comes back from working in 
the post office, which, by the way, director Barry Sonnendale tells the audience 
is composed almost entirely of aliens. The new elements of MIBII are more 
progressive than the story carried over from the original "Men in Black," 
composed of intergalactic elite cops who strive mightily to keep the population 
ignorant yet somewhat protected from the outside universe.

In the future depicted by "Men in Black," customs and immigration, trade and 
black markets remain important with the same dynamics as we see now under 
imperialism. The recognizable black market trade in the universe includes 
evermore sophisticated handguns, including the "Reverberating Carbonizer," 
"Noisy Cricket" and the more rifle-like "Series 4 Deatomizer." With such a 
"vision" of the future, the Hollywood bourgeoisie reassures the rest of the 
bourgeoisie that its rule is permanent, while details such as what the latest 
guns are, which government agencies do what and which aliens are the truly 
important ones all change.

Being a sequel, MIBII operates within the framework of the original reactionary 
premise; nonetheless, important new elements do arise within MIBII. The movie 
opens with a space alien deciding to take the form of a "Victoria Secret" model. 
A species both flower-like and snake-like poses as a magazine model, and 
immediately ingests a would-be rapist in the park, only to defecate the rapist 
in order to regain her figure.

For the rest of the movie, we are left wondering whether the villain is right, 
that with the right set of mammary glands, evil can take over the world. It 
certainly seems that the villain Serleena, the Kylothian monster has her 
tentacles around most of the world. Another bad guy from agent J's generation 
has a prison record for selling away the ozone of Earth. The new "bad guys" of 
MIBII appear to be softcore pornography incarnated in Serleena and pollution; 
yet Agent J and Agent K are still just super-cops.

MIBII is witty and mentally challenging compared with most movies; the acting is 
good and overall MIBII is an expensive-to-produce-movie, a real work of art. 
MIBII also has the added bonus relative to the original that it seeks to put 
things "in proportion." From MIBII's instant sociology and anthropology, we 
learn of a society that lives in a locker and that also worships ordinary 
religion in addition to a wrist watch, an MIB agent, commercials they have heard 
somewhere and pornography. MIBII even seems dialectical somewhat in pointing out 
that the universe seems to have infinite depth in both directions--universes 
smaller than the MIB universe and universes that may be larger and making Earth 
seem like little more than a locker in Grand Central Station. If there is an 
MIBIII, we hope it continues to add in more positive elements, the way MIBII 
did. We still feel that most of the effort going into MIBII is wasted, but we 
could easily see how this movie could be improved in progressive directions.