Summer School: 'Men in Black' (1997)

Once again, I'm looking back at previous installments of some of this summer's big returning franchises.

In his early films, Barry Sonnenfeld seemed like the perfect melding of Tim Burton and the Coen brothers, and since they were some of my favorite filmmakers at the time, I was a huge Sonnenfeld fan from the start. After his work on Get Shorty and the Addams Family movies, Men in Black was the perfect fit for Sonnenfeld's blend of whimsy and snark, and the first MIB film is pretty much the zenith of his career (it was definitely all downhill from there). Based on a comic book in the days before every comic book property was made into a movie, MIB has a clear, instantly appealing premise, following the secret agency tasked with protecting humans from the aliens who live covertly on Earth.

Most of these aliens are harmless and friendly, and MIB gets a lot of mileage out of the gently antagonistic relationship between the human agents and the aliens trying to go about their business. The talking pug, the tentacled newborn, and the worm-like creatures in the breakroom are all instantly memorable, and their brief appearances give a perfect glimpse into the wider alien world that the main characters are working within. The mix of practical effects and CGI holds up remarkably well, and the creature design is inventive and fun. The core of the movie, though, are the human characters, and Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones are at the height of their respective personas as the mismatched Agents Jay and Kay, who have a well-worn but entertaining buddy-cop dynamic.

Smith is the brash NYPD detective recruited into the secretive MIB organization, and Jones is the world-weary veteran who's seen it all and is ready for retirement. Although their styles clash, they clearly respect each other from the start, and their riffing is never insulting or unpleasant, just a string of clever, sometimes goofy jokes delivered with impeccable timing. The supporting cast is great, too, including Vincent D'Onofrio as the nasty bug alien wearing a suit of human skin, Rip Torn as the gruff MIB boss, and Tony Shalhoub as a fidgety alien dealer in stolen goods. I was especially disappointed to be reminded that Linda Fiorentino's career essentially ended not long after she made this movie, and her smart, alluring coroner character, who has great chemistry with Smith's Jay and ends the movie clearly set for a major role in the sequel, never returned.

The details of the plot are a little underwhelming at times, and the ticking-clock finale doesn't quite have the urgency that it needs. But it's also refreshing that a comic book-based summer blockbuster didn't feel the need to stage a massive action climax with an entire city being demolished. Jay, Kay and Fiorentino's Laurel fight off the gross, evil bug alien, and that's all it takes to save the Earth. It reinforces the idea that the MIB are always saving humanity without anyone realizing it, and it places this story in the overall context of their ongoing adventures. The ending makes the prospect of a series of sequels enticing, and I'm already bracing for the inevitable disappointments of returning to the second and third movies.