Tommy Lee Jones, never more serious, unsmiling and businesslike, stars as K, the veteran agent of Division 6, whose members dress, as William Morris agents used to, in black suits and black ties. The agency is headed by Zed (Rip Torn), who grows alarmed at the latest threat to Earth's sovereignty and assigns K a young assistant code-named J (Will Smith).
Their biggest problem materializes when a flying saucer strikes the truck of a hillbilly named Edgar (Vincent D'Onofrio) and the alien inside occupies his body, none too comfortably. Imagine Orson Welles in a suit of armor and you will have a rough approximation of how easily the Edgar-alien inhabits his skin.
The running gag in the movie is that almost anyone could be an alien; the film begins on the Mexican border, where Jones takes charge of a group of lawmen who have nabbed some illegal aliens and picks out the one who is really an alien: a fantastical, blobby bug-eyed monster with a realistic human face mask.
The special effects are by Industrial Light and Magic, and the aliens are by Rick Baker, perhaps Hollywood's greatest creator of monsters. Here he goes hog wild. Instead of being asked to create one alien race, he's been assigned to create a galaxyful, and every one is a new surprise. There were times I thought we were seeing the new seven dwarfs: Slimy, Gooey, Icky, Creepy, Sticky, Barfy and Pox.
The plot (if there can be said to be one, and if I understood it) involves a scheme by "Edgar" to somehow use a captured galaxy to conquer Earth.
Although aliens would presumably be more advanced than we laggards on Earth, many of these aliens seem to have advanced only to the approximate level of the Three Stooges and are vanquished by a series of bizarre weapons employed by J and K (you may have seen the previews: "Any idea how to use this?" "None whatsoever.").
Linda Fiorentino, still looking for the right role to follow her triumph in "The Last Seduction," hasn't found it here - but her hard-bitten coroner will do nicely as an intermediate step.
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