Men in Black II

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

A 2002 sequel to Men in Black, considered a "more of the same" Sequelitis.

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

Tropes used in Men in Black II include:
  • Adam Westing: Michael Jackson
  • Anal Probing: Sci-Fi nerd Newton, upon finding out what J and K actually do, raises the question, "What's up with anal probing?"
  • Apathetic Citizens: J is thrown through the window of a New York subway train shortly after attempting to sedate the giant toothed alien monster with a tranquilizer and immediately starts shouting at everyone to evacuate to the next car. The passengers ignore him until a giant toothed alien monster 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 chewing them out about this by pointing out that in an actual emergency, they would have been eaten. He then reneuralyzes them once he realizes that he's carried on for far too long, 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.
  • 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. Apparently his species is Ballchinian!
    • A hilarious ad-lib, to boot, as some of the other takes identified him as a Godnadineck, Nutchinian, Chinball, Nutthroatean, and Chinsackian. There were likely many others.
  • Beethoven Was an Alien Spy: Michael Jackson. "I could be Agent M!"
  • 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.
  • Big Bad: Serleena.
  • 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.
  • Buxom Is Better: Lampshaded by Serleena in this little tidbit of dialogue:

Serleena: Silly little planet. I could rule the place with the right set of mammary glands.

  • Call Back: After K regains his memory, the constellation he stares at is Orion.
  • Canon Immigrant: Among other shout outs to the cartoon, the Deneuralyzer.
  • City of Weirdos: MIB 2 had a scene where 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.
  • Creator Cameo: Barry Sonnenfeld (with his wife and daughter) as the family in the apartment K and J raid for weapons in the sequel.
  • Cut the Juice: J ordered 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.
  • 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.
  • Eldritch Abomination: Serleena's true form.
  • 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.
  • Extremely Short Timespan: Takes place mostly in one night.
  • Face Full of Alien Wingwong: K, Frank, and Zed all talk about their own sexual experiences with aliens at the end of MIB II to cheer J up after his Love Interest was forced to return home, much to J's disgust.

J: (pointing at Frank) No advice.
J: (pointing at K) No talking.
J: (pointing at Zed) ...HELL no.

  • Fan Service: Rosario Dawson's presence, though it's kind of dwarfed by having Lara Flynn Boyle playing as an alien that disguises itself as an underwear model in leather.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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.

Sonnenfeld: Derek, can you try to--
Will Smith: Who the fuck is Derek?!

  • Inferred Holocaust: Averted but lampshaded. After they have Laura, the Light of Zartha, leave the planet and destroyed her pursuer, K tells J to leave and head back to headquarters. J then points out that a great deal of people had witnessed what had happened with the implied possibility of having to a long night of neuralyzing all of New York before they can go back to HQ. K then puts on his sunglasses and nonverbally tells J to put on his sunglasses, and then activates a giant Neuralyzer located within the Statue of Liberty's torch.
  • Killer Rabbit:
    • Frank.

Frank: Got kids?
Agent (who was laughing at him): No.
Frank: Want 'em?
[growls, sounds of screaming as he attacks the agent]

    • Also, Serleena's initial form, which is a tiny worm/plant thing.
  • Kill It Through Its Stomach: Poor Jeff...
  • Lecherous Licking: A mugger licks Serleena's face before she kills him, and later on Serleena sticks her tongue in Agent K's ear.
  • Lighter and Softer: To the point of parody. The original comic was much, much darker.
  • Losing Your Head: Jeebs.
  • Luke, I Might Be Your Father: It's heavily implied K is Laura/The Light of Zartha's birth-father.
  • 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, presumably because he was offscreen.
  • Mythology Gag: When the man reading the newspaper expresses his gladness while reading his newspaper 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.
  • Naive Newcomer: K, when J tries to bring him back. J gets exasperated when he keeps poking everything.
  • One-Winged Angel: Serleena's final takeover of the Subway Worm.
  • Orphaned Punchline: "Rectum? Damn near killed 'em" by the worms.
    • This might qualify under Noodle Incident, but when J was attempting to establish a channel with Frank during their chase by Serenna, Frank the Pug is saying to the Worms 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!'"
  • Pre-Mortem One-Liner: J to Serleena: "Your flight's been canceled," although she gets better... temporarily.
  • Punctuated! For! Emphasis!:

K: WHAT. IS. A GAME BOY?!

    • "WE GOT A BUG! IN THE ELECTRICAL SYSTEM!"
  • Red Herring: J (and the viewer) are led to believe that the Light of Zartha was Laura's watch. Actually, the watch 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.
  • Retired Badass: K.
  • 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.
  • Sand Worm: Jeff, the subway worm.
  • Sci-Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale: Arguably 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 Alpha Centauri, our nearest star, in 5.31 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 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 Handwaved) and brings back the amnesic K. Thing is, once his memories are restored, the same character dynamic from the first movie (despite J having five years of experience) is repeated.
  • Sexy Coat Flashing: Serleena really wants to become an underwear model (but not before infesting MIB headquarters).
  • Super Multi-Purpose Room: K hid a stash of alien weaponry in his old apartment.
  • Swallowed Whole: Serleena to a mugger.
  • Take That: When K uses the Neuralyzer to neuralyze any potential witnesses to Serleena's chase of him (and their flying car), the only visible neuralyzed people were two kids who strongly resembled Huey and Riley Freeman from The Boondocks.
  • Unstoppable Rage: After J's new recruit foolishly tried to pull on Jeffrey (the Subway Worm's) flower, to put it simply, it was extremely P.O.'ed, and started lashing out at everything, including J, and then rampaging across the Subway tunnels. He eventually calms down after J attempts to threaten to blast it if it doesn't calm down, and presumably also due to the tranquilizer that he injected earlier finally going into effect after the slight delay.
  • Weaponized Landmark: The Statue of Liberty. Sort of. It's actually a giant Neuralyzer.
  • 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.

"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' Deneuralyzer is distinctly less advanced than what was previously shown.
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