ALIENS, SMITH AND JONES: BACK IN BLACK

Agents Kay & Jay: We're Here to Goo on You, Ma'am.

Forget "Spiderman," "Minority Report" and whatever other FX-fest is on the big screens now. The tech boys on "Men in Black II" have come up with the most impressive, impossible special effect of all: Lara Flynn Boyle's breasts. I've seen "The Practice" and she sure doesn't pack a rack under her law suits, but here her boobs bubble up and threaten to escape her Frederick's of Hollywood lace-and-leather ensemble like a pair of shaved possums caught in a snare net. I kept hoping Tommy Lee Jones would shoot them off with his alien blaster, just to see if they would grow back again like pawnbroker Jack Jeebs' head. No such luck.

As for the other aliens, we're seen them all before, especially Michael Jackson and Martha Stewart. And a talking dog? Didn't they have one in "Scooby Doo" and every Disney film ever made? And why would worms talk like the Taco Bell chihuahua?

Will Smith's Agent Jay mugs smugly like a man who has just earned a really big paycheck for very little effort. At 88 minutes, this movie is shorter than a Fresh Prince music video, or just seems that way. Nod ya head, Will, if you think this is an honest way to make a living. Speaking of head, Smith competes with Winona Ryder for Weirdest Ears in Show Business.    

As neutralized Agent Kay, now working--where else?--in the post office, Tommy Lee Jones can't remember how to do his former job or how to act. Maybe a good, brisk dermabrasion would help jog his memory. If Rick Baker is such a makeup genius, why can't he dab a little concealer on Jones' pockmarks?

The throwaway bits about alternate universes were funnier and more imaginative than the main plot...something about a light, a girl, destruction of the planet, blah, blah, blah. Who cares. But I'd see it all again for the 3 minutes with Tony Shalhoub as Jeebs. I could watch Shalhoub scrape tar off his shoes for two hours, he's always that good.

And it's nice to see that Johnny Knoxville has made a major career move, from "Jackass" to  two-headed jackass--as Charlie/Scrad, hench-alien to Boyle's Serleena. For the next MIB installment, they should drop Smith and Jones and give Jeebs and Scrad their own movie. They can investigate why the Federal government knows the whereabouts of every outer-space alien in our midsts, yet hasn't a clue about who is enrolling in our flight schools.

- Cheryl Solimini