A new Men in Black animated series is the best way forward for the struggling sci-fi franchise

The Men in Black sequels should have been a slam-dunk. After all, the first movie, despite its sci-fi premise, operates like a buddy cop film where two very different guys get paired together and bond while in pursuit of some bad guy. Historically, these kinds of movies — like Lethal Weapon, Rush Hour and Will Smith’s other franchise, Bad Boys — are ripe for sequels because all you have to do is put those two guys together on a new case and let their already-established chemistry take over. Men in Black II and Men in Black 3, however, each fumbled the ball in several ways.Men in Black II made the mistake of recycling the first plot of an alien coming to Earth in search of yet another cosmic artifact, except Lara Flynn Boyle’s lingerie-wearing shapeshifter Serleena wasn’t nearly as strange or monstrous as Vincent D’Onofrio’s giant roach creature. There was nothing new or exciting about this new villain, who bore more than a passing resemblance to Natasha Henstridge’s alien from Species and Mystique from X-Men. Returning director Barry Sonnenfeld also gave her a really annoying two-headed sidekick in Scrad and Charlie (with both heads being played by Johnny Knoxville).