- Now that everyone has been introduced, we can get started. That may as well have been the slogan for Bryan Singer's X2 (aka X-Men 2), a film that is in most respects an improvement over its exposition-laden predecessor. The film's opening sequence, in which a teleporting mutant named Nightcrawler (Alan Cumming) infiltrates the White House in an attempt to assassinate the President, is a disappearing/reappearing masterpiece of well-executed CGI action that sets an incredibly high bar for the rest of the film. In fact, I'm not sure if X2 ever surpasses its first few minutes, although a later infiltration of the X-Men's "Institute for Higher Learning" admittedly comes pretty close. A superhero film with not one, but two great action scenes is already something to celebrate.
- So why would a mutant want to attack the President? One might imagine it has to do with the anti-mutant hysteria sweeping the land in the form of televised protests and proposed laws to restrict mutant freedom, presumably related to the events of the first film. Instead, the X-Men discover that Nightcrawler's overdeveloped sense of Catholic guilt (understandable, given his demonic appearance) would never have permitted him to intentionally undertake such actions. In fact, it is the cloak-and-dagger operative General Stryker (Brian Cox) who is behind the attack, wielding a mind-controlling potion that bends mutants to his will. While he has had some success applying this approach to his seemingly innocuous assistant Yuriko (Kelly Hu) and the imprisoned insurrectionist Magneto (Ian McKellen), the audience guesses that it will take more than that to dominate the mind of that mental master Professor X (Patrick Stewart).
- But it turns out that Stryker's story is more interwoven into the history of the X-Men than is initially obvious. His son Jason (Michael Reid McKay) once attended Professor X's school, and the results were not to the general's satisfaction. Moreover, Stryker clearly knows something about the mysterious origins of that cigar-chomping, scene-stealing toughguy, Wolverine (Hugh Jackman), which is more than the amnesiac mutant can say for himself. In one of the film's best sequences, Stryker's violently executed raid on a surprisingly resilient group of schoolchildren takes a surreal detour into a hallway where all that separates Wolverine from his past is a slab of ice. Normally you wouldn't think of an adamantium-clawed rage machine as the best choice for a student chaperone, but when Wolverine dispatches half a dozen armed interlopers in just a few seconds, you begin to see the appeal.
- Gripping action sequences aside, X2 also improves upon the first film in its examination of the day-to-day challenges of being a mutant. For Rogue (Anna Paquin), who drains the life out of anyone she touches, there's the worry that she'll never be really close to anyone. Her intended boyfriend Iceman (Shawn Ashmore) is instead more concerned with his mother's request that he try "not being a mutant" for a while, a notion the mischievous Mystique (Rebecca Romaijn) explicitly rejects. Newcomer Pyro (Aaron Stanford) reacts to mutant mistreatment with fiery eruptions of anger, while Nightcrawler feels only pity for those who fear him. Jean Grey (Famke Janssen) remains preoccupied with fear of her own power, a fear she finally overcomes in the film's surprisingly tragic conclusion. While X2 still carries some dead weight in the form of underdeveloped and unenthusiastically portrayed characters Storm (Halle Berry) and Cyclops (James Marsden), Jackman and the honey-throated trio of Stewart, McKellen, and Cox are strong enough to make up for any deficiencies. The result is perhaps not the best superhero movie ever, but a thoughtful and often exciting version of the most diverse and unjustly persecuted group of superheroes the world has ever known.
- There are lots of fanboy shoutouts, particularly when Mystique looks at a computer listing known mutants. Also, a non-blue Hank McCoy on the TV.
