195 quotes found
"You sold a reverberating carbonizer with mutate capacity to an unlicensed cephalopoid, Jeebs, you piece of...!"
"[To Jeebs] I want you on the next transport off this rock, or I'm gonna shoot you where it don't grow back."
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals, and you know it."
"1,500 years ago, everybody knew that the Earth was the center of the universe. 500 years ago, everybody knew that the Earth was flat. And 15 minutes ago, you knew that humans were alone on this planet. Imagine what you'll know tomorrow."
"That is a lot of fun, it's a universal translator. We're not even supposed to have it, and I'll tell you why: human thought is so primitive, it's looked upon as an infectious disease in some of the better galaxies. That kind of makes you proud, doesn't it?"
"[After J accidentally activates a device that causes havoc around the headquarters] This thing caused the 1977 New York blackout. Practical joke by the Great Attractor. He thought it was funny as hell."
"Imagine a giant cockroach, with unlimited strength, a massive inferiority complex, and a real short temper, is tear-assing around Manhattan island in a brand new Edgar suit. That sound like fun?"
"[To Beatrice] No, ma'am. We at the FBI do not have a sense of humor we're aware of."
"[When goading the bug into eating him] Hey! Hey, bug! Wait a minute, I'm talking to you. You know how many of your kind I've swatted with a newspaper? You're nothing but a smear on the sports page to me, you slimy, gut-sucking intestinal parasite! Eat me! EAT ME!!!"
"You see this?! Huh?! NYPD! Means I will knock your punk-ass down!"
"You trying to catch a beat-down, huh?!"
"[to Agent K, while wearing his suit for the first time] You know what the difference is between you and me? I make this look good."
"HEY! OLD GUYS! Do those still work?"
"I hate the living."
"[examining Rosenberg's corpse] Oh, my God! [laughs] Whoa, buddy, what are you?"
"[to J and K, after blowing up the bug] Interesting job you guys have."
"[Regrowing his head after K has blown it off] You insensitive prick! Do you have any idea how much that stings?"
"[after being screamed at by K for selling a reverberating carbonizer with mutate capacity to an unlicensed cephalopoid] He looked alright to me!"
"[voiceover, as Edwards becomes Agent J] You will dress only in attire specially sanctioned by MIB Special Services. You'll conform to the identity we give you, eat where we tell you, live where we tell you. From now on, you'll have no identifying marks of any kind. You will not stand out in any way. Your entire image is crafted to leave no lasting memory with anyone you encounter. You are a rumor, recognizable only as déjà vu and dismissed just as quickly. You don't exist; you were never even born. Anonymity is your name, silence your native tongue. You are no longer part of the System. You are above the System. Over it. Beyond it. We're "them". We're "they". We are the Men in Black."
"We're not hosting an intergalactic kegger down here."
"The twins keep us on Centaurian time, standard 37-hour day. Give it a few months. You'll get used to it. Or you'll have a psychotic episode."
"Containment may be a moot point, old friend. The exodus continues. It's like the party's over and the last one to leave gets stuck with the check."
"[Screaming at the worms as they desert their posts] YOU SORRY LITTLE INGRATES!"
""Men in Black," the second Will-Smith-versus-the- aliens picture, is a high- tech comedy, more along the lines of a tight little action movie than a bona fide blockbuster. It was the smallest of the big summer films, the most slickly made -- and the most old-fashioned. Directed by Barry Sonnenfeld, "Men in Black" has the gloss and the wit of Sonnenfeld's other comedies ("Get Shorty," "The Addams Family"). Sonnenfeld uses odd angles and wide lenses to view the action with a sardonic eye, as if the onscreen events were a joke between director and audience. But if "Men in Black" is a joke, who's the joke on?"
"[T]he Men in Black aren't merry entrepreneurs, like the Ghostbusters. They're cold-blooded bureaucrats whose job is to control and suppress information."
"Men in Black came out just as digital effects were starting to rise to prominence and here they look very, very dated in almost every single shot. They almost feel like you could pause the movie, stick your hand onto the screen, and pull them off like a sticker. It’s that bad. On the other hand, that’s also because the film uses those effects so ambitiously. Men in Black uses full, CGI characters years before Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace or The Lord of the Rings did (though they were created differently). So although the effects date the film poorly, it’s also a little bit charming, since everything else in the movie works so well. Put all of that together and 1997's Men in Black today looks, in 2019, like the Missing Link of Hollywood blockbusters. A film that bridges the gap between the old and the new. It blends the legendary Amblin tone of the ‘80s with the soon-to-be-prevalent visual effects of the 2000s, under the umbrella of a comic book adaptation that would spawn a larger franchise, which is the kind of thing movie studios dream of."
"What would be the first question to ask a space alien newly arrived on planet Earth? The dryly clever Men in Black has a novel answer: Carrying any fruits or vegetables? This, you see, is business as usual for the film's top-secret police and immigration authorities, dapper black-suited types who keep tabs on stray spacelings in the New York area. There are a lot of these visitors. They come in all shapes and sizes. Some tote cartons of Marlboros for the trip back home."
"There's a jarring discrepancy between the film's plot, which tosses around the fate of galaxies yet still manages to be inconsequential, and its imposing scale. Certain sets, like the pawnshop lighted by Edward Hopper and the vast Eero Saarinen-inspired Men in Black headquarters, are studied and elegant to the point of distraction. Yet with its production design by Bo Welch (Edward Scissorhands, A Little Princess), one of the enormously talented contributors to the film's overall look, Men in Black even makes its morgue inviting. (Scenes there feature Linda Fiorentino, who deftly underplays the city's deputy medical examiner and certainly belongs in the same movie with the supremely unruffled, tacitly hilarious Mr. Jones.) The film's technical team reflects exceptional stylistic harmony. Mr. Sonnenfeld, the cinematographer on the early Coen brothers films, invokes the eccentric clarity of their work and that of Tim Burton (whose usual composer, Danny Elfman, contributes some black magic to the score). Mr. Welch also designed Mr. Burton's Beetlejuice, while Rick Baker's amazing special makeup effects are on the same weird wavelength. Industrial Light and Magic deserves star billing in a film with approximately 250 visual effects shots. (Jurassic Park had 60.) The tricks don't share much continuity, but they can rock Mr. Smith in the tentacle of a space squid or make the Men in Blackmobile fly through the Midtown Tunnel upside down. A wonderfully playful coda will send you home with a smile."
"Our Flick of the Week is the often hilarious "Men in Black," a smart, funny and hip adventure film in a summer of car wrecks and explosions."
"In addition to a top-flight cast (Rip Torn is the big boss of the MIB), the behind-the-scenes talent involved in "Men in Black" is first-rate. Bo Welch, a three-time Academy Award-nominated production designer, has created an MIB headquarters and research facility that is a hilarious mix of man, alien and machine. Ric Baker is the master of movie creatures. And director Barry Sonnenfield ("The Addams Family"), a former cinematographer, makes every shot look great. But if I had to pick the one person most responsible for the success of "Men in Black" it would be writer Ed Solomon, who invests all of his major characters with brains."
"“I always felt like the secret to Men in Black was not the sunglasses and the big guns and the coolness, and the other surface level coolness of it,” Solomon says. “I always thought the secret of Men in Black was the generosity of spirit… It was the attitude of the film and its relationship to the audience, which was more of a ‘Hey, everyone check this out, come join us on this journey. Take a look into this world that other people don’t know exists. Let’s go in it together.”"
"“It seems to me like the sequels weren’t dealing with the humanity of the [first] movie,” Solomon says. “The other thing that I really loved in writing the first Men in Black was that it really was about how we humans think we’re so important, but in fact we don’t know anything that’s really going on. And so that was a very human experience, and to me, the story of Men in Black was about a cocky human being who gets humbled and realizes that he ain’t even close to the center of the universe. In fact, the universe, the world, what’s important, is nothing that he ever thought about. Reality isn’t anything like he ever thought. It’s a humbling blow. It’s a very human experience.” Solomon continues, “So I just don’t know. I didn’t get that experience watching the sequels. I think their priorities were slightly different and, I’m not an expert on why a movie works or doesn’t. Sometimes, I’ll think something’s going to be a giant hit and it isn’t, and vice versa. I can’t say for sure, all I can say is that during my own personal experience of writing [Men in Black] that was what was important, and I didn’t get those elements as much from the other movies. That was my own takeaway from being the writer of the first and an audience member of the others.” Still, he’s quick to add that even if he didn’t think the sequels worked as a whole, there were still things to like. “I enjoyed parts of all of them. They just weren’t the way I would have done it, but I didn’t have the opportunity because I wasn’t working on them.” That might be so, but if and when someone else takes a crack at MIB, perhaps these are insights worth sitting on a park bench and appreciating here."
"“Men in Black” is set in New York at the suggestion of its director, a native son, and that sets up inventive use of such landmarks as the Guggenheim Museum, the old World’s Fair grounds in Queens and the Battery Park vent room for the Holland Tunnel, plus the expected jokes about what percentage of cabbies are not of this Earth. Hard to ignore because it’s partly unexpected is the film’s slime factor. “Men in Black” has periodic moments of gross-out humor that will not be to everyone’s taste, and when Edgar the invader finally reveals himself, he turns out to be more disturbing and off-putting than the film’s genial tone would have you expect. But mostly what you get with “Men in Black” is the opportunity to spend some quality time with the Kings of Cool in a world where inconvenient memories get erased and supermarket tabloids offer the most reliable alien tips. It’s not the traditional world where only the bad guys wore black, but you but you already knew that, didn’t you?"
"Tommy Lee Jones as Kevin Brown / Agent K"
"Will Smith as James Darrell Edwards III / Agent J"
"Vincent D'Onofrio as Edgar the Bug"
"Linda Fiorentino as Dr. Laurel Weaver / Agent L"
"Rip Torn as Chief Zed"
"Tony Shalhoub as Jack Jeebs"
"Siobhan Fallon Hogan as Beatrice"
"Mike Nussbaum as Gentle Rosenberg"
"Jon Gries as Van Driver"
"Sergio Calderón as Jose"
"Carel Struycken as Arquillian"
"Fredric Lehne as INS Agent Janus"
"Kent Faulcon as 2nd Lt. Jake Jensen"
"Richard Hamilton as Agent D"
"David Cross as Newton the Morgue Attendant"
"Tim Blaney as Frank the Pug (voice)"
"Scottie Ray as Mikey and additional alien voices"
"I never worked in a funeral home. Somethin’ I can do for you, Slick?"
"Get a mop, and escort all civilian personnel from this site immediately. [After coffee has been spilt at the post office.]"
"It's nice. Sleep late on the weekends. Watch the Weather Channel. I did miss this city."
"Jeff, excuse my partner. He's new and he's... [Jeff attacks T]...kinda stupid."
"[to Jeff] Sweet dreams, big boy!"
"Transit Authority, people! We need to move to the forward car, there's a bug in the electrical system. [passengers ignore him] Yo! People! We got a bug in the electrical system!"
"[J has just saved a whole subway of passengers from being eaten alive by Jeff, the giant worm-like alien, who chewed off about 98% of the subway train before retreating] [Neuralizes subway passengers] The City of New York would like to thank you for participating in our drill. Had this been an actual emergency, y'all woulda been eaten. 'Cause you don't listen. You're ignorant. How a man gon' come bashin' thru a subway when — That's the problem with all y'all New Yorkers. "Oh, we seen it all." [feigning fear] "Oh, no! A 600 ft. worm! Save us, Mr. Black Man!" And I come in, I ask ya nice, move to the next car! Y'all just sit there like...[Neuralizes subway passengers again, regains his composure] Thank you for participating in our drill. Hopefully you enjoyed our new, smaller, more energy-efficient subway cars. Watch your step, you all have a nice evening. [walks off, neuralizing Capt. Bridgewater in the process]"
"[after Frank the Pug suggests the "good cop, bad cop thing"] How about we do the good cop, dumb dog thing, and you just shut up?"
"Jeff, I am so not in the mood for you! Get back in the subway! Right now!"
"About to lay the smack-down on your candy ass! (In homage to The Rock)"
"Yeah, every Saturday night you'd be like, "Flush me J., Flush me." and I'd be like, "Naw.""
"[After the Worms accidentally shut down the MIB headquarters upon him and K taking it back] WORMS!!"
"[After neuralizing Newton and Hailey] Okay, first, get some contact lenses, ‘cause joints look like they can pick up cable. Second, take her to Cambodia. Get her a lobster dinner. Pay more than a dollar. Third, the second y'all get back from Cambodia... move your bum ass out of your mom's house. Boy, you like forty years old."
"[After K calls for him to leave, to Newton and Hailey] Oh, and there ain't no such thing as aliens or Men in Black."
"[after seeing the Grand Central Station Locker Creatures’ ”large adult entertainment section”] That's just nasty."
"Man, tell it to the hand."
"So what's it like on the outside? Not doin’ this every day?"
"Silly little planet. I could rule the place with the right set of mammary glands."
"Prisoners of MIB. The scum of the universe. Well, now it's the scum's turn."
"So feisty."
"Here's the deal. I lose, you lose. I win, everything keeps spinning."
"Oh, yummy. Someone I need to eat."
"An hour ago, a man I've known my whole life vanished in front of my eyes because of a woman with things coming out of her fingers and a two-headed guy with the IQ of a cannoli. So yeah, everything's okay."
"When we're kids, before we're taught how to think, or what to believe, our hearts tell us there is something else out there. I know what I saw. You tell me what I'm supposed to believe."
"Peter Graves: Although no one has ever been able to prove their existence, a quasi-government agency known as the Men in Black supposedly carries out secret operations here on earth in order to keep us safe from aliens throughout the galaxies. Here is one of their stories that "never happened" from one of their files that "doesn’t exist"."
"Frank the Pug: (upon seeing Ben's skin only) Hey, J, zero percent body fat! (Homage to Lara Flynn Boyle.)"
"Worms: Once you've had worm, that’s what you'll yearn!"
"Grand Central Station Locker Creatures: K is back! The light keeper! All hail K! All hail K! Oh, K, can you see by the dawn's early light..."
"Jeebs: (head is growing back after J shot it off) Oh, great, right in the pie-hole! Now nuttin’s gonna taste right!"
"MIB Guard: [after J and K come to stop Serleena, he's reading a tabloid that says "Satan Escapes from Hell."] It's about time you guys got here. That pretty lady in there is causin’ all kinds-a-hell."
"On that second film, we sort of forgot a few things. The second film, I think, tried a little too hard for “comedy,” and also the first and third films have very strong villains. The second film, although Johnny Knoxville and Lara Flynn Boyle are funny, they’re not really quite strong enough to make your heroes be heroic. I think we learned our lessons and went back tonally to the first film."
"We Got a World to Save"
"Same Planet. New Scum."
"Coming to Rid Your Earth of the Scum of the Universe... Again!"
"This Summer, They're Back in Black."
"This Summer, They're Back in Business. They're Back in Action. They're Back in Black."
"Time to put on the last suit you'll ever wear...again..."
"Back in Black."
"Tommy Lee Jones - Agent K/Kevin Brown"
"Will Smith - Agent J/James Darrell Edwards III"
"Rip Torn - Zed"
"Lara Flynn Boyle - Serleena"
"Johnny Knoxville - Scrad/Charlie"
"Rosario Dawson - Laura"
"Tony Shalhoub - Jack Jeebs"
"Patrick Warburton - Agent T"
"Jack Kehler - Ben"
"David Cross - Newton"
"Colombe Jacobsen - Hailey"
"Michael Jackson - Agent M"
"Peter Graves - Himself"
"Biz Markie - Beatboxing Alien"
"Nick Cannon - MIB Autopsy Agent"
"Jay Johnston - Younger Pizza Parlor MIB Agent"
"Drew Massey - Worm Boy (uncredited)"
"Kevin Grevioux - Pineal Eye"
"Martha Stewart - Herself (cameo)"
"Tim Blaney - Frank the Pug (voice)"
"Greg Ballora - Sleeble"
"Carl J. Johnson - Gleeble"
"Thom Fountain - Neeble"
"Brad Abrell - Mannix"
"Richard Pearson - Gordy"
"Okay! You know how you're on a airplane and the flight attendant asks you to turn your cell-phone off. And you're like, I ain't turning my cell-phone off, that don't have nothing to do with no damn airplane. Well, [Showing the crowd a crashed spaceship] this is what we get, that's what happens. It gets up there, bounces around on the satellites, then blam! Just turn your damn cell-phone off. Now you're gonna drive off a cliff tonight because your GPS don't work."
"[talking to K at Wu’s restaurant] Man, I am getting too old for this. I can only imagine how you feel."
"[looking at an ugly alien fish] Ooh, man, you look like you come from the planet... Damn."
"May I have your attention please... [Neuralyzes a crowd] Okay. You know how your kid won the goldfish in that little baggy from the school fair, but you didn't want that nasty thing in your house so you told your kid it ran away but what you really did was flush it down the toilet? Well, this what happens. [Points to an alien fish being towed away] Okay, see what I'm talking about? Don't lie to your kids!"
"No, I call ladies "O." To me O is feminine, K is masculine. Y'know, I see a couple, I'm like... OK."
"First of all, my name is J. Okay? It's not Son, it's not Slick, and it damn sure ain't no Cochise."
"[from trailer, talking to Marco, a graffiti alien, and a graffiti artist] Crazy, right? Two grown men, talking to the wall, wall talking back, it's a mess. But hey. Don't even worry about it."
"[Upon seeing K’s car destroyed by Boris’ motorcycle after Boris captured Griffin] Damn it!"
"[To Boris] 'You might wanna get a pedicure if you get a second.'"
"[After seeing 1969 K shoot 1969 Boris] Where there's death, there will always be death."
"[giving a eulogy] I worked with Zed for over 40 years and in all that time he never invited me to dinner, he never asked me to his house to watch a game, he never shared a single detail of his personal life. [long pause] Thank you!"
"I don't ask questions I don't want to know the answer to."
"(To J): 'Boris the Animal...I put him away a long time ago, it's the worst mistake I ever made.'"
"(To O on the phone): '...Lunar Max Prison- Boris the Animal.'"
"(To Boris): 'You haven't changed very much. I see the arm I shot off is...still shot off.'"
"[While pointing his gun in J's temple] We'll take it from here."
"(Before shooting 1969 Boris) Not this time."
"[repeated line, whenever someone calls him "Boris the Animal"] It's just Boris!"
"Let's agree to disagree!"
"[after his weasel animal settles into the cavity in his hand] You complete me."
"[hanging on to Lily, preventing her from being sucked out into space] Sorry, darling. We did love the cake. [releases her]"
"Let's rewrite history, shall we, K?"
"(To K): 'Yes, my arm. (Speaking to his pet) We've thought about that moment...(looking up) everyday...for the last 40 years.'"
"(To past self) ' With my help, we'll get the Arc Net, kill Agent K, the invasion will be successful and we'll get to keep both of our ar...AR...ARRR...STOP STARING AT IT!'"
"[last words] Go ahead. Arrest me."
"[repeated line] That was a close one."
"A miracle is what seems impossible but happens anyway."
"'When that ball is pitched to Davey Johnson- who only became a baseball player because his father couldn't find him a football to give him for his eighth birthday- it hits his bat two micrometers too high, causing him to pop out to Cleon Jones- who would have been born Clara, a statistical typist, if his parents didn't have an extra glass of wine that night before going to bed.'"
"I lost my planet. I don't want you to lose yours. It'll take a miracle, but if you pull this off, you'll be my new favorite moment in human history."
"-[followed on] 'Oh dear, I never see this one coming.'"
"Where there is death... there will always be death."
"You know, all movies go through a lot of drafts, and on this one, everyone just decided to make a bigger deal out of that. What I would say is, what made finessing the script harder on this one is that we were combining two genres. We were combining a Men in Black movie and a time travel movie and we had never done a time travel movie before. I can’t tell you how many times we watched Back to the Future. But the thing about time travel is you have to really set up the rules. You have to make sure the audience understands the rules. You have to make sure the characters understand the rules and you have to have the audience understand why the characters are doing the things they are doing to achieve what they need to do. And you’ve got two different Borises, you’ve got Young K and Old K. So, making these movies are hard enough and making a time travel movie is double hard. And putting them both together is quadruple hard. That’s what took a lot of drafts, because you’d think you solved a problem in the second act and then someone would wake up at 3:00 in the morning and go, “Wait a minute, we can’t kill him first, then the other one dies too.” So obviously in a perfect world you work that out [in the script] ten years ago."
"Will Smith as Agent J"
"Tommy Lee Jones as Agent K"
"Josh Brolin as Young Agent K"
"Jemaine Clement as Boris the Animal"
"Emma Thompson as Agent O"
"Michael Stuhlbarg as Griffin"
"Mike Colter as Colonel James Darrell Edwards, Jr."
"Michael Chernus as Jeffrey Price"
"Alice Eve as Young Agent O"
"Nicole Scherzinger as Lily"
"David Rasche as Agent X"
"Keone Young as Mr. Wu"
"Bill Hader as Andy Warhol / Agent W"
"Will Arnett as Agent AA"
"Lanny Flaherty as Obadiah Price"
"Cayen Martin as Young James Darrell Edwards III/Young Agent J"
"It took me 20 years to find you, more or less. How many people can say that? I...found...you!"
"Check, please."
"Yeah, I made my own box for the division that has no box. You know, the division where they wear black suits and deal with the guys from... [points up] ...up there."
"I am MIB, you Cerulian scum. And FYI, your little club here sucks."
"We are the Men in Black. The Men and Women in Black."
"Always remember, the universe has a way of leading you to where you're supposed to be at the moment you're supposed to be there."
"Riza again, H? When are you going to learn?"
"[to H] You were always like a son to me. You were always like a son to me. You were always like a son TO HIM."
"I pledge loyalty eternal to you, Agent M."
"Perfectly done. [glass breaks] Whoop!"
"Nice save."
"I'm not losing another queen."
"We are above the system, over it, beyond it. We are them, we are they, we are Men in Black."
"I think we may have a problem in London."
"Welcome to the circus, Agent M. You are no longer probationary. [hands M a neuralyzer]"
"[dismissively] "Peace offering"."
"[spying on H] Why are you wearing pink trousers?"
"Vungus the Ugly: Yeah, baby!"
"Bassam: Feeling hydrated? Never had a bath before. [shakes the water off] Lost 2 pounds in dirt alone."
"Chris Hemsworth as Henry / Agent H, a top agent in the MIB UK branch"
"Tessa Thompson as Molly Wright / Agent M, a rookie MIB recruit assigned to the UK branch"
"Liam Neeson as High T, the head of the MIB UK branch"
"Kumail Nanjiani (voice) as Pawny, a tiny alien warrior that H and M befriend"
"Rafe Spall as Agent C, a senior MIB agent in the UK branch who is skeptical of H's past"
"Rebecca Ferguson as Riza Stavros, an alien intergalactic arms dealer and H's ex-girlfriend"
"Les Twins as the Twins, a shape-shifting alien duo seeking a dangerous artifact"
"Emma Thompson as Agent O, the head of the MIB US branch who operates out of New York"
"Kayvan Novak as Vungus the Ugly, a member of an alien royal family and friend of H"
"Annie Burkin as Nerlene"
"Spencer Wilding as Luca Brasi, an alien mobster who acts as personal bodyguard to Riza Stavros"
"Marcy Harriell and Inny Clemons cameo as Molly's parents in a flashback"
"Thom Fountain and Drew Massey as the Worm Guys (voices), worm-like aliens that work for MIB"
"Stephen Wight as Guy / Stupid guy in a call center next to Molly"