You Love to See It: Men In Black (Patreon)

Vincent D’Onofrio’s grotesquely oddball turn as a gigantic extraterrestrial cockroach wearing the hollowed out and rotting skin of an asshole farmer and abusive husband is perhaps the most memorable aspect of Men In Black, a cynical and pro-surveillance state but otherwise unimpeachable ‘90s action flick. The leprous makeup and subtle CGI and practical effects used to show his disguise’s gradual decay, D’Onofrio’s jerky movements and garbled, glottal voice — it’s all deliciously disgusting, a creepy, crawly gross-out spun into over an hour and a half of nauseating shenanigans. He yanks his skin taut over his skull in an attempt to fool his host’s wife. He staggers wildly down a city sidewalk, body convulsing like he’s made up of the parts of three separate people doing ‘the robot’ at three separate speeds. 

But what really sells the character of Edgar the bug isn’t special effects or a memorable and laugh-out-loud funny but still repugnant performance — it’s the fact that he’s the hero of the film. Let’s dig into why. To start, the first thing “Edgar” does after crashing on Earth is kill and eat a hapless woman’s cruel, bullying abusive husband. Presented with the opportunity to kill her and erase a witness, he deigns to leave her alive. In fact his ire is reserved for government thugs, his political enemies, and those he observes killing insects. It seems fair to say that watching another human being murder a chimpanzee would be traumatic, and it stands to reason that seeing people casually splatter cockroaches would feel similarly to Edgar. At any rate, he never engages in wanton destruction or murder. He even leaves the cat carrying the cosmic artifact around which the plot revolves unharmed.

Edgar’s actions may spark a potential war, but it’s the violent militaristic Arquillian royal family that threatens to annihilate Earth in the wake of one of their number’s murder. As for Edgar, he has 28 million children to feed, and with no mention of a mate or mates it’s not much of a jump to imagine he’s a single dad. Starting a war with the intention of feeding your brood on the carnage may seem horrible at first blush, but what else are you going to do when you’re saddled with that kind of parental responsibility? Besides, we know nothing but what humans and Arquillians say about Edgar’s species, all of which is highly charged. He’s more careful and selective than his government pursuers, less bloodthirsty than his alien nemeses, and more concerned with the welfare of his family and species than the film’s own protagonists. Not bad, for a twelve-foot-tall insect.