Men in Black (film)/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Complete Monster: Boris The Animal proves himself to be the nastiest villain in the Men In Black series. Specifically, he is a member of the Boglodites, a race known for feasting on a planet's resources. After his girlfriend helps him to escape from prison, he repays her by allowing her to be sucked into space. He also murders a fellow inmate after previously promising that he would let him accompany him in his prison escape. He's also responsible for committing several murders, including Agent J's father, which was done solely out of spite. There's a reason Agent K regrets not killing him when he had the chance.
  • Sequelitis: The second movie wasn't nearly as well written as the first, relying much more on gratuitous Fanservice instead of thematically appropriate comedy.
    • And the third movie, while having its good points, is mostly a rather painful assortment of bad jokes and self references.
  • Acceptable Targets: The wife-beating redneck who gets bugified at the start of the first film. Obviously didn't want any worrying about what happens to someone who gets eaten by a space cockroach.
  • Adaptation Displacement: It was originally an indie comic book. One that didn't focus exclusively on aliens, either. Originally, the MiB's job was to snuff anything too weird for the American public. The first issue was all about a New Mexico death cult, for example.
    • Additionally, MIB was not nearly as benevolent in the comics. Instead of having a neuralyzer, agents would outright murder a witness to cover-up or complete a mission. The organization also had an ulterior agenda that involved manipulating Earth as opposed to simply protecting it.
  • Fridge Brilliance: In the first two films, the majority of the aliens were done via CG with some practical tossed in. In the third film during the 1969 scenes, most of the aliens are done via practical makeup/animatronic effects via Rick Baker, to give them a more "retro" feel similar to how they would have looked during that era.
  • Funny Aneurysm Moment/Hilarious in Hindsight: The induction speech is creepier now that Will Smith is starting to be taken in by the Church of Happyology.
    • Any movie set in New York before 2001 is sure to feature the World Trade Center in skyline shots.
  • Genius Bonus: The first film included a "practical joke by the Great Attractor" -- Great Attractor being the name for a strange gravitational anomaly with an apparent mass equal to tens of thousands of Milky Way galaxies.
  • Harsher in Hindsight: This exchange, from Men in Black:

Jay: Did you ever flashy-thing me?
Kay: No.
Jay: I ain't playing with you, K. Did you ever flashy-thing me?
Kay: No.

    • Though it could have referring to the fact that Jay had been memory wiped earlier in the movie, we later find out that yes, Kay did wipe Jay's memory when he was little after his father was killed in Men in Black 3.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight: Will Smith was originally slated to play Neo in The Matrix trilogy. In that movie, he would have fought Agent Smith, a villain who greatly resembles an MIB agent.
    • The first film (released in 1997) includes a scene where Kay talks about a "fascinating little gadget" confiscated from aliens that's "going to replace CDs soon". To anyone watching the movie after 2001, he sounds like a time traveler describing the iPod to someone in The Nineties.
      • For added irony, Kay also offhandedly remarks that "I'll have to buy The White Album again". In the early years of iTunes, the store's failure to carry music by The Beatles was one of the biggest complaints against it.
      • The device itself was a Sony MiniDisc player, one of the company's many failed attempts to get past the CD era.
  • Ho Yay: J constantly referring to K as his partner. Enough to cause Mistaken for Gay at one point.
  • I Am Not Shazam: The Bug Alien's name is NOT "Edgar". Edgar is the name of the farmer the Bug Alien kills and disguises himself as in the first movie. The animated series seems to forget this. In the first movie, J calls it "the bug in the Edgar suit".
  • Memetic Mutation:
    • Wearing shades, followed by the use of The Neuralyzer, are a must in any MIB parody.
    • A common phrase to compare a new trend with an out-dated one:
  • pointing at old trend* Old and busted.
  • pointing at himself (new trend)* New hotness.
    • You know the difference between you and me? I make this look good.
  • Nightmare Fuel: The alien at the beginning of the first Men in Black film freaking out when the police officer saw him. What the hell is that thing?
    • Boris. he can send tiny, knife like parasites to kill instantly, murders his girlfriend for no reason at all, and can erase you from time. Well, less murders her, given he made an attempt to hold her from being sucked into space. Granted, he didn't try very hard at all.
  • Ugly Cute: The guck-spitting squidling that J delivers.
    • The little Alien Lunch creature that K confiscates from the Chinese restaurant in the third film.
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