Men In Black

MEN IN BLACK (1997)

Dead-eyed Toward Wonder: The Secret Key to Summer Blockbusters

No doubt archeaologists are even now uncovering the original predecessor of this movie in some darkened tomb; a long, senseless scroll that was considered a dead civilization's feel-good summer hit. I felt that way about Ghostbusters, too, which this film essentially is; charismatic star plays disbelieving audience shill swept into a sweeping plot loaded with big special effects and laughs. In this one, Will Smith is recruited for the top secret Men In Black, a secret organization that is essentially the border patrol for Earth, which has secretly been a member of the galactic community since, uh, one of the World's Fairs or something. Will Smith acts cocky and makes expressions of disbelief while getting covered in goo. (See? Fill in Bill Murray and you have Ghostbusters. Fill in Horus and you no doubt have "Sebekhotep Needs Maidens" or whatever packed them in during the Twelfth Dynasty.)

There's some sort of threat to all life on earth, but the movie is smart enough not to make too much of it. In fact, that's essentially how I feel about this movie. It is a very smart bad movie. I remember enjoying it, but I didn't even bother to write it down on my list of movies seen (which you can study, should you choose, over at the Bio page). This means something, and in fact, thinking back on this movie feels slightly painful, although it could be that godawful Will Smith theme song that was played, over and over, over and over, over and over on the radio and on MTV. Song aside, My Flying Wife has pretty much the same ingredients, but I liked it more and remembered more of it.

Until I can figure why I didn't like it, let me tell you about the things that I liked, and why. Tommy Lee Jones, playing Smith's experienced partner, plays everything perfectly. Jones was developing a habit of being really bad in big movies, showing up and sneering at everyone, and he does an admirable job of sticking to the quiet melancholy of his character. Smith I actually like quite a lot, although I was surprised how little of him there was on screen. He was in every shot, but he had no character to play of any sort. One of Smith's strengths, though, is that he's too smart to try and put something into a role that doesn't have anything in it. He has charisma that seems to come from pragmatism. He could be the next Tom Hanks, I think, although like Hanks he needs to find a light comic role that can show deeper, sadder feelings (like Big did for Hanks) before he gets a chance to escape the gilded mansions of "joke, joke, bang, bang" movies.

Jimmy Stewart as the Cockroach Conqueror of the Universe The casting of the minor parts in this movie is where MIB really excels. Tony Shaloub has a itty-bitty role as an alien hustler that he makes enjoyable. Rip Torn as the head honcho in black is essentially a hoot. But a standout is Victor D'Onofrio as an enormous cockroach wearing human skin that D'Onofrio plays like a narcotized spastic in a straightjacket. With Jimmy Stewart's voice to boot. Like so much of Men In Black, D'Onofrio's performance makes perfect sense in a way I can't pin down.

And then there's Linda Fiorentino as Laurel, the coroner who is always on the verge of catching on that something isn't quite right with the Men In Black and the strange bodies she briefly sees coming through her morgue. Ahh, Linda Fiorentino. She's one of those actresses that doesn't seem to have such good luck becoming a bigger star after her breakthrough in The Last Seduction. She's sort of like Lauren Bacall to me; the less affected she seems by everything around her, the more attractive and compelling she is. Always tough for people who are actors since they always want to run around, yell, emote, cry, etc. In this movie, Fiorentino doesn't have much to do and she does it like a charm. In fact, perhaps this will show you how unreliable Linda Fiorentino. Sigh. a critic I am in my vague dismissal of MIB; I would have been much happier if this movie had been titled "Linda Fiorentino Takes A Nap and Wakes Up Once or Twice to Ask for Water." That would be one of my top ten favorite movies of all time, I bet. Enough with all the dogs that look like aliens and aliens that look like dogs and aliens that make coffee and complain about the food. Enough, in short, with all this "let's spend a lot of money showing the extradordinary and then milk comedy out of how blase everyone is except the cocky disbelieving star about the remarkable things all around while cramming it all into a desperately overheated three act structure with a big threat at the end and Danny Elfman music throughout" that I'm sure even the Egyptians, the Mayans and the Sumerians grew tired of. Let's use all these smarts to do something more than sell toys and comic books. Let's use them to get good roles for all these smart people or at least give us the eye candy that we need rather than what we want. Linda Fiorentino isn't getting any younger! I would like to give the archeaologists of the future something that might make them hold their breath with awe, not make them scratch their head and figure out how we could still have so many problems with poverty and starvation and locusts when we had enough smarts to make something so intelligent and yet so flyweight as Men In Black.

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