X2

5/03/03 - Review

The X-Men are back but this time they are forced to team up with Magneto in order to stop and evil madman bent on destroying all mutants. 

After a lone mutant, Nightcrawler, infiltrates the White House and nearly kills the President of the United States, Professor X senses a shift in the equilibrium.  He sends out Jean Grey and Storm to make contact with this mutant as he and Cyclops visit Magneto in his plastic cell to try and find answers behind this event.  Professor X has Wolverine stand guard over the School and its children mutants. 

When X and Cyclops get to the prison, they discover that there are other things going on behind the scenes.  Colonel William Stryker, on direct orders from the President, has been using every means necessary to get access to the whereabouts of the secret location of the mutants, and most notably the Cerebro.  The Cerebro is what Professor X uses to maintain contact with every mutant on the planet.  William Stryker enrolled his son, a mutant, in Professor X’s school years ago in order to cure him but the Professor could not convert him to a human.  Stryker has resented him for that fact ever since.  It was rumored that Stryker did experiments on mutants but no proof ever came about.  It was also though that Wolverine was somehow tied to one of these experiments. 

By using a secret serum on mutants that makes them powerless, Stryker is able to get the location from Magneto.  When X arrives at the prison, Stryker stages an ambush and incapacitates X and Cyclops.  At around the same time, a whole Platoon of army soldiers attacks and enters the school in upstate New York.  But, with the help of Wolverine, most of the children escape. 

After Wolverine, Rogue, Iceman, and Pyro, escape, they meet up with Storm, Jean Grey, and their newest member, Nightcrawler.  Nightcrawler ends up being the proof needed to show what is going on.  He, much like other mutants, was being manipulated by Stryker in order to achieve the prime objective: create a war between the humans and the mutants, and inevitably killing the mutants. 

Now that Stryker has Professor X, he uses him with his newly created Cerebro twin in order to kill every mutant on the planet.  Magneto discovers this so he has Mystique bust him out of his plastic cage.  The two of them then team up with the X-Men to create a partnership to stop William Stryker from killing them all and to prevent the war between humans and mutants and for Wolverine to finally discover his past.

What can be said about X-Men 2?  When a time when comic book movies were scarce and pretty much non-existent, at least good ones, X-Men debuted in the summer of 2000 and changed all that.  Ever since then, nobody ever thinks twice about converting a comic book to the big screen.  X-Men was a good movie when it came out, but its sequel, X2, is even better. 

You can say that this movie builds on all of the things that worked in the first film and leaves behind all of the little inconsistencies which kept the original from being totally great.  What we have this time is a flawless script, a great director, and a cast which fits their roles like a glove.  The story is nothing short of amazing which should bring back viewers to the theaters multiple times.  X-Men has definitely fueled the struggling comic book genre. 

The director, Bryan Singer, continues his growth in maturity and skills as his superb direction gives a memorable movie experience.  He has learned much from the first film to create a second one that makes the statement “sequels suck” seem like a phrase from the past.  The script he used was incredible that left out the slow pace of the first film and added a bunch of twists and sub-plots in the beginning that added up to one big mystery.  He continues to use his cast wisely as each character’s story keeps getting more in depth as we find out more and more about their past, especially Wolverine.  Bryan Singer is the perfect director for these movies, so I hope they bring him back for the next one. 

Each of the superhero mutants continue to evolve because of the actors that play them.  Patrick Stewart as Professor X and Ian McKellan as Magneto are two pivotal roles that need good actors and great is what they got.  They are both much better in this film but that can be said of every actor.  Cyclops fans will be disappointed though because he had very little screen time.  I wasn’t bothered by this because I don’t care for him anyway. 

Wolverine is by far the coolest mutant, in my opinion.  It has been rumored that he might be getting his own spin-off but that remains to be seen.  Hugh Jackman was an unknown when he was cast to play Logan in the first film but since then he has become a very well known star.  His performance in this film is much grittier and darker for Wolverine as he discovers more about his past.  Much like the other sub plots, much is learned about Wolverine’s past which unlike other movies, helps to add depth to the plot because it actually adds to the story.  Hugh Jackman does a fantastic job from his acting to the extreme action sequences.  He also has his off the wall comments much like he had in the first film. 

Like I said earlier, the two mutant groups unite instead of fighting one another.  That means that another villain is needed.  Bryan Cox plays that villain as Colonel William Stryker.  He does a good job of portraying a father who has gained a hatred against mutants after X couldn’t cure his son.  Now, he has the means necessary to destroy them all.  He was a very good villain and a worthy adversary to the mutant superheroes.   

The special effects were done quite well especially all of the action scenes.  Nightcrawler is a teleporter that can transport to anywhere as long as he can see where he is going.  He had some of the coolest special effects scenes as he was walking and running through walls and other cool scenes which I can’t say because they will give stuff away. 

The other special effects were amazing and looked real.  The only problem I had was some of the locations looked really fake but what are you going to do about that?  They looked like cheaply made sets. 

The action, well lets just say there was a lot more of it this time around.  The coolest fight scenes would have to be Wolverine taking on the intruders breaking into the Professor’s mansion or the very cool fight scene between him and a female twin of himself, Lady DeathStrike.  Even the dam busting at the end was done very well as it looked real and not too CGI-ish like some of the more modern pictures. 

X-Men 2 is an incredible action-adventure fantasy that everyone should see.  Comic book fans will love it and most movie goers will enjoy it as well.  It is a great movie that keeps getting better as it chugs along.  The only bad thing about it is that it ends.  Bring on X-Men 3.    

Grade

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