After two decades of the science fiction genre's considerable
success at the box office, all inspired by Star Wars Episode
IV - A New Hope, I suppose Sci-Fi satire was long overdue. In the
summer of '97, we were treated to both writer-director Luc Besson's
seriocomic The Fifth Element and an adaptation of Lowell
Cunningham's imaginative Malibu comic. Ed Solomon wrote the witty
screenplay and the delightfully droll Barry Sonnenfeld directed Men
In Black.
The clever premise is deceptively simple. Aliens
have been living among us for decades. They're disguised to look just
like humans, permitting them to work and play among us. Policing and
enforcing the laws created to control these aliens while they're
visiting falls to a very secret agency: the Men in Black. Should an
alien misbehave, they're there. The Men in Black are so secret that
few in government know of their existence. This makes recruitment a
bit tricky. When a talented and tenacious young New York cop,
James Edwards (Will Smith), comes to the attention of Agent K (Tommy
Lee Jones), he's invited to the underground headquarters of MiB to
take a few competitive tests. He proves his ability to think outside
the box and before you can say neuralizer, he's become Agent J. Much
of the film's humor is at J's expense, learning by doing. The
headstrong J isn't very intimidated by the head of MiB, Zed (Rip
Torn), but he's amazed when sleazy Jack Jeebs (Tony Shalhoub) grows
back his.
The Macguffin of the piece is the Galaxy on Orion's
Belt, which could destroy the Arquillian home world if it falls into
the wrong hands. And wrong hands do indeed come to Earth in search of
this precious item. A fierce alien known as a bug skins an Earthling
to obtain a cunning disguise - the victim is a wife abuser, so we
aren't very concerned. As Edgar, the bug might be less noticeable, but
Vincent D'Onofrio's quirky interpretation of the character makes the
alien less than subtle. The Arquillians arrive and threaten to
vaporize the Earth rather than allow the key to their destruction to
fall into the bugs' possession. In step the Men in Black to track down
the bug and save the day - with a little help from the coroner's
office in the form of Dr. Laurel Weaver (Linda Fiorentino). The cast
is uniformly excellent, striking just the right tone of deadpan
seriousness to elevate the silliness to worthy science fiction
satire. 
Video: How Does The Disc Look?
The
film's theatrical aspect ratio of 1.85:1 is presented in anamorphic
video. I'm most pleased to report that edge halos are essentially
gone. Superbit's elevated bit rate produces better-defined textures
and more distinct small object detail, unencumbered by the annoying
video ringing of halos. Colors remain splendid, with low chroma noise
and no smearing. Fleshtones lean very slightly toward the red,
imparting a modest pink to everyone's skin. Shadow detail is
excellent, which is fortunate, since most of the film takes place at
night. Blocking artifacts and mosquito noise are totally absent. This
is one of the best looking of the Superbit releases and the DVD
appears closer to film than in any previous MiB release.
Despite the slightly unnatural flesh tones, this DVD deserves a rare
top video rating.
Audio: How Does The Disc Sound?
There are two 5.1 tracks on this DVD: Dolby Digital and DTS. They
are both outstanding. The surround channels are very active with
directional cues that benefit from EX decoding. I almost had the
impression that the mixer was exaggerating the surround channel
activity to correspond with the over the top tone of the film. Deep
bass can be felt as well as heard. Sound effects have great dynamic
range, with little audible compression. Danny Elfman's entertaining
score is presented with great presence and fidelity across a broad
soundstage. The dialog remains crystal clear throughout, with no
audible hint of compression harshness. 
I was surprised to find
that the comparison between Dolby Digital and DTS yielded some rather
odd results. DTS had a very slight edge with the timbre of music and
the human voice. But the bottom-most octave was noticeably more
dramatic on the Dolby Digital track. Each time K shuts down the black
Ford, after the turbines spool down we hear what I can only describe
as a low frequency shudder from the engine. It's clearly audible in
DTS, but in Dolby Digital it's tighter and more prominent. The Dolby
Digital track shook my pants legs; the DTS did not. On balance, I
think I prefer the Dolby Digital track
Subtitles are included
in French, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, Korean, Thai, and English,
for which Closed Captions are also offered.
Supplements:
What Goodies Are There?
Consistent with the philosophy of
dedicating the entire bit budget to the audio and video, there are no
supplements on this DVD. The 98-minute feature is organized into
twenty-eight chapters.
DVD-ROM Exclusives: What do you get
when you pop the disc in your PC?
No ROM extras have been
included.
Parting Thoughts
I enjoyed returning
to Men in Black; I hadn't seen it in quite a while. I was
reminded of how fresh the humor and situations seemed when I first saw
the film. In comparison, Men in Black 2 is derivative and, in
many ways, imitates the original after simply reversing J and K. This
Superbit disc is splendid looking and sounds great. If your system is
capable of revealing the improvements, you will not be disappointed.
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