Men in Black II

Five years after the first film, Agent J has become a top agent but has developed a habit of neuralyzing partners he feels are emotionally unfit to cope with the work. When he is called to investigate the murder of an alien, Ben, at his pizzeria, waitress Laura Vasquez tells him that the murderers are Serleena, a shapeshifting, plant-like Kylothian who has taken the form of a Victoria's Secret lingerie model, and her two-headed servant Scrad and Charlie. Laura says they were looking for something called the Light of Zartha. J is strongly attracted to Laura, and in violation of MiB rules, does not neuralyze her to erase her memories.

J finds that little is known about the Light of Zartha, except that it is immensely powerful. As he investigates the crime, every lead points to his former partner and mentor, Agent K, who was neuralyzed upon retirement five years previously and remembers nothing of his MIB service. In Truro, Massachusetts, where K is now the town's postmaster, J convinces him of his past by proving that all of his fellow postal workers are aliens.

Back in New York City, Serleena, along with Scrad and Charlie, launches an attack on MIB headquarters before K's neuralyzation can be reversed, but Jack Jeebs has an illegal deneuralyzer in his basement. K eventually regains his memories but remembers that years before, he neuralyzed himself specifically to erase what he knew of the Light of Zartha and those memories have not returned. As a precaution, he left himself a series of clues.

At the pizzeria, they find a locker key. J and K fear for Laura's safety and hide her with the worms. The key opens a locker in Grand Central Terminal where a society of tiny aliens, who worship K as their deity, guard their most sacred relics: K's wristwatch and video store membership card.

At the store, as J and K watch a fictionalized story of the Light of Zartha, K remembers the Zarthan Queen Lauranna long ago entrusted Men in Black with safeguarding the Light from her nemesis, Serleena, who followed Lauranna to Earth and killed her. After hiding the Light, a grief-stricken K neuralyzed himself, both to bury his sadness and to ensure that he would never reveal its hiding place. K still cannot remember where he hid it nor what the Light looks like. Thinking it might be Laura's bracelet, he only remembers that it must return to Zartha soon or both Earth and Zartha will be destroyed.

At the worms' apartment, they find that Laura has been captured by Serleena. With the worms, they counterattack MIB headquarters, freeing Laura and the other agents. Serleena attempts to retaliate by chasing them with a spaceship through New York but is eaten by Jeff, a gigantic worm alien living in the New York City Subway.

Laura's bracelet leads J and K to the roof of a skyscraper where a ship stands ready to transport the Light back to Zartha. K reveals that Laura is the daughter of Lauranna (and, it is implied, his daughter) and that she's also the Light. K convinces J and Laura that she must go to Zartha to save both her planet and Earth from destruction. Serleena, who has absorbed Jeff and taken his form, attempts to snatch the ship carrying Laura as it lifts off, but J and K blast her out of the sky. Since all of New York City has just witnessed this battle in the skies over the metropolis, K activates a giant neuralyzer in the torch of the Statue of Liberty.

Back at MIB headquarters, J finds the tiny locker-dwelling aliens now in his locker, moved there by K and Chief Zed in an attempt to give him some perspective. When J suggests showing the miniature creatures that their universe is bigger than a locker, K kicks open a door and reveals that the human universe is itself a locker within an immense alien train station.

• Will Smith as James Darrel Edwards III / Agent J: Still on active duty with the MIB, he is not satisfied with the partners assigned to him and keeps neuralizing them.
• Tommy Lee Jones as Kevin Brown / Agent K: A decommissioned senior MIB agent and the only person who used to know how to stop the latest threat to Earth's safety.
• Rip Torn as Chief Zed: The head of the MIB.
• Lara Flynn Boyle as Serleena: A shapeshifting Kylothian alien who comes to Earth to find a vital power source used by her race's enemies.
• Johnny Knoxville as Scrad and Charlie: A humanoid alien (Scrad), with a second small head (Charlie) on a stalk protruding from his neck, who does Serleena's dirty work.
• Rosario Dawson as Laura Vasquez: A young woman who turns out to be the long-lost alien princess from Zartha and the power source sought by Serleena.
• Tony Shalhoub as Jack Jeebs: An alien pawn shop owner who uses a home-built machine to "de-neuralize" K and restore his memory.
• Patrick Warburton as Agent T: Partnered with J, who neuralizes him and throws him out of the MIB after an incident with Jeff.
• Jack Kehler as Ben
• David Cross as Newton
• Colombe Jacobsen as Hailey
• John Alexander as Jarra
• Michael Jackson as Agent M (cameo)
• Martha Stewart as Herself (cameo)
• Peter Graves as Himself
• Linda Kim as Princess Lauranna, an alien from Zartha and the mother of Laura.
• Paige Brooks as 'Mysteries in History' Lauranna
• Nick Cannon as MIB Autopsy Agent
• Biz Markie as Alien Beatboxer
• Jeremy Howard as Postal Sorting Alien
• Martin Klebba as Family Child Alien
• Doug Jones as Joey

Despite some initial involvement from David Koepp (who left to work on Panic Room and Spider-Man),[2] the script was written by Robert Gordon and later revised by Barry Fanaro, who added pop culture references, something which Gordon had deliberately avoided.[3] Sonnenfeld took issue with the producers' focus on the love story between Will Smith's and Rosario Dawson's characters, saying that "I learned on Wild Wild West that audiences didn't want to see Will as the straight man. And until Tommy comes back into the movie, by definition Will's the straight man." Fanaro condensed the first part of the film and brought Agent K in earlier.[2] Famke Janssen was originally cast as Serlenna, but dropped out due to personal issues, Lara Flynn Boyle was hired to replace her.[4][5]

Principal photography began on June 11, 2001 and ended on September 23, 2001. The climax of the story was originally filmed against a backdrop of the twin towers of the original World Trade Center; but after the September 11 attacks, the climactic scene was reworked to being at the Statue of Liberty. Other scenes incorporating views of the twin towers likewise were edited, or reshot.[6][7] Filming for Men in Black II was also suspended due to the attacks.[8]

Supervising sound editor Skip Lievsay used a Synclavier to recreate and improve the original recording of the neuralyzer sound effect from the first film (which was the sound of a strobe flash as it recycles) by removing some distortion.[9] For some of the scenes with the Serleena creature, the sound crew "took tree branches, put them inside a rubber membrane and pushed that around and added some water."[9] For the special effects scene where the subway train is attacked by Jeff the Worm, a specially designed vise was used to crush a subway car and make it look as if it had been bitten in half.[3]

Unlike the first film and the 1997 animated series, Men In Black II did not feature Agent L who was played by Linda Fiorentino, even though the character had a prominent role in the latter. It was briefly mentioned in the film by Agent J that she had been neuralized because she wanted to work back at the morgue. According to producer Laurie MacDonald, the studio did not consider her a permanent character in the franchise and decided to remove her from the sequel. There were also reports suggesting that Fiorentino was difficult to work with and supposedly Jones' refusal to work with her.[10][11]

The motion picture soundtrack to Men In Black II was released on June 25, 2002 by Columbia Records.[12]

A sequel titled Men in Black 3, was released in 2012.

A fourth installment, Men in Black: International, was released in 2019.

Wikiquote has quotations related to Men in Black II.

• Official website
• Men in Black II at IMDb
• Men in Black II title listing at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
• Men in Black II at AllMovie