By Claude Mills, Staff ReporterX2 IS EASILY one of the best superhero sequels ever made. The gorgeous special effects, great acting and adrenaline-fuelled storyline will 'x-cite' your imagination.
After a spectacular and daring attack on the President of the United States stokes anti-mutant fever in the United States, activists begin clamouring for the Anti-Mutant Registration Act to be enacted, prompting the government to call on William Stryker to assess and defuse the mutant threat.
What happens next will send you on a wild roller-coaster ride that will obsess every neuron of your body. To paraphrase Coleridge, there are mutants, mutants, everywhere.
Teaming up again are Professor Xavier (Patrick Stewart), Wolverine (Hugh Jackman), Magneto (Ian McKellen), Storm (Halle Berry), Jean Grey (Famke Janssen), Pyro (Aaron Stanford), Cyclops (James Marsden), Mystique (Rebecca Romijn-Stamos), Nightcrawler (Alan Cummings), Deathstrike (Kelly Hu), and Iceman (Shawn Ashmore) who reprises his role, and becomes the new love interest for Rogue (Anna Paquin).
SUPER-POWERED MUTANTS
Having so many super-powered mutants in a show can be problematic for a film-maker but the plot of the movie unfolds in much the same way it is done in comics, with the plot splitting up the superhero teams, making it easier to efficiently handle the multiple characters.
X2 takes the central conflict in X-Men, Xavier's belief in the possibility of peaceful co-existence between humans and mutants, versus Magneto's doctrine of mutant supremacy, to the next level. In the new film, the threat comes not from a powerful mutant, but from a human, that of William Stryker (Brian Cox), a character that ups the ante and makes the stakes higher than before, threatening the very existence of mutantkind.
Stryker is devilishly scheming, and consumed by his anger and hate of all things mutant because his mutant son, Jason, caused the death of his mother, and destroyed his family. So motivated, Stryker hunts mutants to exact some revenge.
Stryker's forces attack Xavier's School for Gifted Children, picking up on the climax of the first movie when Magneto asks Xavier, 'What will happen if they pass that stupid law and they come to your mansion to take your children?'. As good as the action is, it is the character development and side stories that will hold your attention. The love triangles create a lot of sexual tension. Rogue has moved on romantically, dropping the infatuation she had for Wolverine for a tryst with the Iceboy. Rogue doesn't do much in this movie but maybe we can expect more from her in X3.
INSEPARABLE
Wolverine still lusts after Dr. Jean Grey, who is still inseparable from her long-time fiancé Cyclops. However, the two get into some hot and heavy tongue-wrestling action even though Jean tries to ward off the attraction by bluntly declaring to Wolverine:
"Girls flirt with the bad guys, they don't marry them."
In a nice side story, Pyro's disaffected behaviour is the epitome of teenage angst. You can see the conflict which rages within. Pyro is involved in a great scene one third of the way through the movie which shows that his abilities to expand fire are expanding quickly, and threaten his judgement.
The glue that holds the disparate elements of the movie together is the stage presence of Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart.
McKellen is the 'bomb', he owns every line he speaks, from when he fires a zinger at Rogue ('Love what you've done to your hair'), to when he is wooing Pyro to the dark side ('You are a god among insects'), and his aside after he kills a security guard ('Never trust a beautiful woman, especially one that is interested in you'). He also has one of the best action scenes in the movie, the 'Escape from the Plastic Prison'. (It was so good I just had to give it its own subtitle.)
FUNNY MOMENTS
There are some funny moments such as the scene where Iceboy confronts his parents about his origin in a queasy parallel to a young man 'coming out of the closet' to his parents. This should provide a few good laughs, but also hints at the ignorance, fear and intolerance that exists against someone who is 'different'.
As if to underline the right to be unique, Nightcrawler asks Mystique why she chooses to keep her freaky look when she could take the appearance of anyone she wants. Mystique replies: 'Because I shouldn't have to'. That's deep for an X-men movie, isn't it?
Other noteworthy scenes include that of face-off between Deathstrike and Wolverine, which is an epic cinematic moment.
Mystique almost steals the movie again. In X2, she is a much more sexual creature, morphing into Dr. Grey, and then liplocking with Wolverine, in a tent scene that is pure movie magic.
Even if you are not a fan of the comics, it still works as action eye candy except for the climactic scenes which are too drawn out, and lack the emotional punch and taut pacing evident earlier. It would also help those unfamiliar with the comics to watch the first movie before you watch the sequel so you can keep the characters and the storylines straight.
All in all, you'll love this stylishly dark tale of teens in heat and on the rampage, and the thrill of the experience will leave you breathless in the end.
I am already salivating for X3.
