10 Movies That Ended Way Too Early

Compounding the disappointment of Men in Black II just not living up to the original's inventiveness, it's also perhaps the shortest film in history to rock a massive $140 million budget.

The sequel rolls its end credits at almost exactly the 80-minute mark, and though the alien queen Serleena (Lara Flynn Boyle) has been defeated, it all comes too thick and fast to feel like the movie's true climax.

Almost half the movie is over before the retired Agent K (Tommy Lee Jones) is brought back into the fold, meaning we don't get nearly enough of the dynamic between K and J (Will Smith) that made the original such a delight.

As it turns out, Men in Black II was hurried into production without a completed script in order to get ahead of a rumoured actors' strike.

Also, due to the 9/11 attacks, the climax originally set against the World Trade Center was re-filmed to take place at the Statue of Liberty.

The production was so stressful that director Barry Sonnenfeld believed he was having a heart attack after a particularly challenging shooting day.

All in all, this likely explains why the film's ending feels so sudden, and its final "the human universe is a locker" twist feels stapled on just to give the movie a logical end-point.

It felt like there was way, way more to explore here. Sonnenfeld and co. seemingly didn't learn their lesson on Men in Black III either, which famously began shooting without its second or third acts being fully written.

In that case, however, it was miraculously well-received and felt like a surprisingly complete, coherent movie.