The Kansas City Star from Kansas City, Missouri • 61

"7 Wednesday July 2 1997 The Kansas City Star F-9 The alien Mikey hides inside the body of a Mexican immigrant in In Columbia Picture inoustfiM inc MiB Continued from F-1 Jack LEMMON Walter MATTHAU UutSea Dvim I WO I I urn Kill Don iltl llil Kill CONNOK I lDI Mi I Ml plays the scene as he does his entire role completely straight with hilarious results up your arms and all your he orders alien reprobates with the blunt authority of Playing things looser is Smith who one-ups his comedic performance in last alien-invasion smash It also helps that in a much better movie As the neophyte Agent Smith provides amusing commentary while exhibiting normal surprise at creatures that can grow back their blown-off heads faster than you can say Taking every ample opportunity for laughter is Torn whose gift for dry sarcasm turns lines into daggers Before sending home a group of failed MiB applicants with impeccable military records he announces: congratulations everything come to expect from government That kind of Strangelove satire of society will only help in Black" endure as a fan favorite aliens for information leading to a dangerous or cockroachlike beast that has come uninvited to Earth with a deadly agenda of its own The objective involves murdering and then masquerading in the skin of Edgar (Vincent a wife-abuser who is appropriately transformed into a grotesquely shuffling housing unit for the increasingly ugly-tempered alien Getting sucked into the bug hunt is Laurel (Linda Fiorentino) a sharp medical examiner whose recent autopsies of murder victims suggest otherworldly intervention While the visual effects by Industrial Light and Magic are extraordinary you will believe an alien with squidlike arms can shake a man like a rattle much of the magic in in occurs during the downtime between startling effects There may be no funnier scene than Agent roughing up an alien impersonating an ordinary bulldog As onlookers register expressions of growing indignation continues to throttle the animal like Sam Spade working over a tight-lipped stoolie Jones priced visuals Sorry Batman Would you believe characters whose portrayals hint at more than recycled cardboard? A real stoiV? True wit? Its all here from director Barry Sonnenfeld Addams and screenwriter Ed Solomon Excellent Garry based on Lowell comic book Men in drawn from urban UFO legends The big-screen in is the beiieve-it-or-not story of the refugee space aliens among us the 1500 or so who have either crash-landed or fled dire intergalactic circumstances to live on Earth under human guise with the ultra-secret permission of the government Monitoring the licensed but still unpredictable alien population are the Men in Black an agency so hush-hush that the memories of retiring agents are erased as a routine precaution against detection When veteran Agent (Jones) approaches a young New York cop (Smith) to join the MiB the hot recruit is informed that he must forever sacrifice his previous identity to become the alien-savvy Agent Future fashion statements will also be restricted explains Zed home-office head (played with deadpan grandeur by Rip Tom) put it Zed says what asks last suit ever Ensconced in ebony and packing high-tech heat and hit the street to shake down incognito LIKE THESE GUYS Favorite Comedy! BESTFRIEND' JUS Now Showing! WflHD PARKWAY 72 ipriml jmk laWMBWi MB no muses accepts THE K1L1IR SUMMER GETAWAY I GEORGE LUCAS Hlmmtikrr and liiiiisjilin Ihinnum 1 1 I toniiiiiimeiil iw buildim ill 1 i IX eompltws: uUik rstjes Inn iliMjt in provide ilu In si esperieiKe possible I Ik toiiibiiiiiiuii 1 1 i i il sound not I I IX oilers movie goers die ullimm in film pies niuion Thx RAY DOLBY hiiniif ij I hilly? I ilnn 7 i 1 1 1 niivusiisii Ini i mi 1 1 1 1 1 ol lot ii I) i lueii nr iiiilunu 1 1 1 1 1 ill i willi I olb 1 i 1 1 Hiiul tut i III It is I lkeii lilt IlilHnn ill pit It i 1 1 1 Its i US! mill I It 1 1 1 1 1 1 IV j-l Ill II I Hi III It I III 11 It nn OOLBY t) I I I A I TOMMY MILLMAN MiiIUi ill I I tl III KO lilt I I lit I -i SHOWINO! kansas18city a station casino i i it it CALL 333 FILM.