Rick Baker: Alien Maker (2002) Online

This 9 minute 49 second featurette on the visual and special effects that Rick Baker contributed to "Men in Black 2" can be found on the second disc of the 2-DVD special edition of the aforementioned movie. It was interesting to me only because I enjoy Rick's work. I didn't go into it thinking that it would be a comprehensive look at Rick Baker's career. I knew it was gonna be pretty much a fluff piece for the movie at hand. So your enjoyment of this extra is going to be dependent on you appreciation of the work that Baker does or you love of the move itself. I'm of the former, NOT the latter by the way.

My Grade: C-

The documentary looks at Rick Baker as he works on the alien design and creation for MIIB. Describing himself as part of `the first generation that grew up in front of the TV' Rick explains how he carries out his work and how he has overcome the challenges of MIIB.

Although this short was on the MIIB DVD, the title suggested that it might be about the man himself as opposed to limited to his involvement with this film. Sadly this is almost totally limited to his work on this film. This is a shame because when he off-handedly refers to other films he has worked with you realise that he has had a tremendous amount of input to major films over the years.

However these references to other films are just that - verbal references, and everything is focused on his design for MIIB. I realise that this is the limits of a DVD featurette but just a little more detail and background would have been of great interest. For example what are his greatest challenges? What is his favourite design? How has he used the onslaught of CGI to his advantage?

Instead it pretty much stays as another way of promoting MIIB without just making another trailer. It is still of interest to see how he works but there is so little detail and story here that I wondered why they made this separate from the shorts that look at the design of each creature in MIIB.