Word: mib
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Dates: during 1997-1997
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...tote shiny gurns, license-free--and even use them at thier discretion, no questions asked. Heck, they can even obliterate people's memories with the blink of a red light. Who wouldn't want their job? Who else could they be but the Men in Black ("MiB" for short: beats "ID4" any day, doesn't it?), "protecting the Earth from the scum of the universe"? Who else could they be but Tommy Lee Jones '69 and Will Smith in one of the most hyped movies of the season...
...hype seems to be working: moviegoers are flocking in droves to see "Men in Black," and the film seems guaranteed to roll to bona fide blockbuster status. The audences could do worse: "MiB" offers quite a few laughs and a brand of screwball entertainment well off the beaten track of most summer fare. That said, it's not as good as you'd expect from the whoopee that critics are making over it. It's fairly funny--and not much else...
...humor of "MiB" depends heavily on satirically inverting the Roswell/ID$ concept of a government cover-up of alien visitations. The point here is covering up is the daily business of the Men in Black. To ensure that humans are kept in a state of tranquil ignorance. Jones coolly erases people's memories of encounters-of-the-third-kind simply by holding up a handy-dandy pen-shaped object called a "newralyzer." More importantly, the MiB serve as the planet's inter-terrestrial INS agents, regulating the movements of some 1500 aliens sojourning on Earth, concentrated mainly in NYC and mostly...
...much for the plot, which is never the strength of a spoof. "MiB" is a patchwork of moments--here, definitely, the parts are greater than the whole. The movie's at its best when poking fun at the tabloid culture that thrives on alleged alien sightings. Supermarket tabloids are the real news sources for the MiB (quips Jones: "you can read the New York Times if you like, they sometimes get it right"). The story of a farm wife, Beatrice (appropriately illustrated with an adapted copy of "American Gothic"), who claims that an alien's wearning her husband Edgar...