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Patrick Stewart,
Patrick Stewart,
Hugh Jackman,
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Bryan Singer,
Bryan Singer
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: 20th Century Fox
: Action, Politics and Social Issues, Comic Books, Superheroes, Marvel, Fantasy
: English, Spanish, French
: English, Spanish
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When a failed assassination attempt occurs on the President's (Cotter Smith) life by the teleporting mutant Nightcrawler (Alan Cumming), it's Professor Xavier (Patrick Stewart) and his School for Gifted Youngsters who are targeted for the crime. While Jean Grey (Famke Janssen) and Storm (Halle Berry) try and locate the assassin, Cyclops (James Marsden) and Xavier (also known as 'Professor X') seek answers from their old foe Magneto (Ian McKellan) in his glass cell...Little do they know they're walking into a trap set by the villainous William Stryker (Brian Cox), a mysterious governmental figure that figures into Wolverine's (Hugh Jackman) secretive past, along with information about the X-Men's operation, supplied by Magneto through a mind-controlling agent. Meanwhile Wolverine, just home from a failed mission to regain his memory, is in charge of the students when a crack-commando team led by Stryker infiltrates the school by order of the President. With a mansion full of young, powerful mutants and the ferocious Wolverine in babysitter mode, can he defend the school against the one man who can answer his questions? What roles do the sinister Mystique (Rebecca Romijn-Stamos) and Lady Deathstrike (Kelly Hu) have in all of this? Why does Stryker want Professor X and his Cerebro machine? With the war between humanity and mutants escalating to extremes, can the rest of the X-Men trust their old foes to help them? Director Bryan Singer returns and raises the stakes in this sequel to the highly lauded 2000 adaptation of Marvel Comics' X-Men. ~ Jeremy Wheeler, All Movie Guide
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| Wolverine and friends
by rpmfla
May 22, 2006 - 11:53 AM PDT
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0 out of 2 members found this review helpful
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The first X-Men movie had some good action and special effects, but it was the back stories of the characters that made it interesting. I usually enjoy finding out about those super heroes I grew up reading about in comics, and even get into the show Smallville for that reason. I always wanted to know how and why Lex Luthor became Superman's arch enemy.
X2 is mostly about cool special effects (best among them being the transformations of sexy mutant Mystique). The plot is very secondary here, as are most of the X-Men besides Wolverine.
Why is Wolverine the principle focus? So he has blades that come out of his hands...big deal. With all of the other spectacular abilities of the other mutants, why is he the focus? I found his character very uninteresting. DeathStrike, his female counterpart (a mutant with Wolverine's ablilities but fighting for the bad guy), was more intriguing.
Why is Anna Pacquin even in these movies? An actress of her abilities is wasted here, as is Halle Berry,
Famke Janssen, Patrick Stewart, and anyone other than Hugh Jackmann. I have nothing against Hugh Jackmann, but if they want to make a Wolverine movie, make a Wolverine movie, not an X-Men movie where everyone else has so little to do.
The best scene in the movie is the very first, with a fast paced attack on the president in the White House by a mutant called Nightcrawler (isn't that a worm?). Nightcrawler (except the name) is a very fun and interesting little demon-looking mutant who happens to be very religious.
The second most interesting character is Mystique, who is balanced quite nicely between desireable and dangerous (which really gets at the heart of what X-Men are all about anyway). She is sexy, deadly, and efficient, and gives the impression she is not completely without redemption (she just hangs with a bad crowd).
The bits and pieces of plot, which jump around without landing solidly anywhere, include self discovery, teenage love, prejudice, and various other underdeveloped themes. I haven't decided if they took one page out of a comic and expanded it into a (long) movie, or took a a huge idea and tried to squeeze it all into just over two hours. Either way, outside of some cool things to look at, I didn't get into this much at all.
I did check out how the professional critics treated this sequel and the majority, while criticising it for lack of a plot, hailed it as better than the first film. Several pointed out how the first one was "bogged down by all the back histories of the characters", and so it didn't meet their action scene quotas. They like how there was none of that here and we get just the action. I like the action and special effects, but I also like an interesting plot holding it all together.
Stay tuned for the next sequel, X3: Wolverine's Hairstyling Secrets. |
| Mutant prozac 2
by markh
April 5, 2004 - 1:05 PM PDT
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0 out of 2 members found this review helpful
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| Not as forgetable as the first instalment but still a film that will not set my memories ablaze. Enjoyable but the package would have been better if I had gotten the extra features disc. The gay/aids/teen angst - mutant sub-plot was a little to "heavy" at times without actualy contributing anything to the film. I still think that Magneto should be played by a younger actor, my memories from the comics was of a lot more physical and less cerebral character, however if you dont like your action spoiled by character development or acting then this is a perfect rental. |
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