X2
Sequels are always worse than the original, as anyone will tell you. Then they’ll sit there for a bit, before saying: “except for Empire Strikes Back… and The Godfather II.” Those two may come in a different order depending on the person’s relative geekiness. So it’s not a hard and fast rule — but often the creative minds who came up with the initial film just can’t quite find enough new ideas in time that will sit nicely in their created universe.
X2 doesn’t have this problem. Chiefly because, there’s a gazillion X-Men comics out there to choose from. If we ever see an X-Men film that’s short on ideas, then we’ll know that the script writers weren’t being terribly clever. That isn’t the case here. With a plot drawn in part from a classic old X-Men comic that I can’t seem to find the name of, X2 packs in a lot more plot than it’s predecessor — yet still manages, for the main, to juggle a crazy amount of characters, developing almost all of them nicely. This makes it hard to review, so I’ll just pick a few characters that particularly appealed, rather than cycling through all of those crazy mutants.
The film seems to start off a few months after the first film. The consequences of that experience are still being felt, which is a nice touch. Jean Grey feels a little peculiar ever since ‘the Liberty Island Incident’. Wolverine’s off using the information the Professor gave him, Rogue and Bobby are starting a relationship, and Magneto’s still cooling his heels in his plastic prison. Something seems to have removed Storm’s dodgy Jamaican accent, too, which is a relief. Into this mix comes a man with a vendetta against all mutants, and the power to put it into effect — Major Stryker.
Director Bryan Singer presumably knows he’s onto a good thing with Hugh Jackman as Wolverine. The plot again runs fairly closely (though not exclusively) to his character, and we see him get uncomfortable hints as to his origins, which Jackman handles very nicely. Also, of course, his action is pretty insane — from the berzerking defence of the school to his later, rather more painful one-on-one battle.
Ian McKellen (The Lord of the Rings) is absolutely fabulous as Magneto. Given far more to work with than in the previous film, he uses it all, being regretful, vengeful, camp, sleazy and tempting at the drop of a hat. Every scene with Magneto is a joy to watch — especially his awesome escape from his prison. His cohort Mystique — played by Rebecca Romijn-Stamos — also gets much more to do — acting independently from anyone else she manages some impressive detective work. And of course any males in the audience will enjoy her that little bit more — especially when she spends some time imitating a woman that looks suspiciously like the stunning actor/model. That phrase — “actor/model” — needn’t strike fear in your heart on this occasion: Stamos actually gives an emotional, sexy performance, revealing a strong heart to Mystique as she talks with Nightcrawler.
Jean Grey gets some interesting things to work with, as she begins to become rather more than the slightly scared telekinetic she was in the first film. In fact, all the X-Men are far more confident here, presumably from having won the day at Liberty Island. It’s a nice development.
The ‘X-Kids’ — Rogue, Iceman and Pyro — get a bit more to do here, and are surprisingly enjoyable. Sadly their plotline fades out towards the second half of the film, meaning Rogue especially gets far less focus than Anna Paquin deserves. Iceman’s dealings with his family are nicely handled — to fit such a personal moment inside an action film is a peculiar but very welcome touch — and Shaun Ashmore does good work with Bobby/Iceman. Hopefully he’ll get to be an X-Man soon… Another potential X-Man is Nightcrawler, sympathetically played by Alan Cumming (Goldeneye), with one of the most useful mutant powers ever.
Stryker (played by Brian Cox) is a suitably irritating villain, who has an evil plan that actually makes sense. I mean it — if you had a good sit down, having seen the first film, and thought evil thoughts, I reckon you could come up with it yourself. This gives the film a much more solid foundation than it’d have if Stryker was just using ‘Huge Death Ray #2’.
I feel that I’ve hardly scratched the surface, and yet I’ve already babbled on far too long. This alone is surely reason enough to see the film — you definitely feel like you’ve gotten your money’s worth. Even if some bits are too corny, some too emotional and some a little cliched, there’s so much of it that there’s always something around the corner for you to enjoy more.
The direction — apart from making what could have been a messy jigsaw of a film into what feels like a cohesive tale — is also pretty exciting at times. Notable moments include Nightcrawler’s dynamic first scene and Magneto’s escape. In later parts there’s just a few too many corridors for my liking — but there’s a slight sense of claustrophobia to go with it that almost makes up for it.
This review sounds like a rave, and to some extent it is — I came out grinning the way I do from a particularly exciting Angel episode, or Bond film. The film’s major drawback, however, is that it doesn’t try hard enough in places to be more than that. The multitudinous character list and plot leaves little room for thematic depth, and one is left with a slightly hollow feeling at the end. X2 is deeper than your average action film — but it’s still straight character development rather than anything clever or philosophical. And it’s probably got one or two more endings than it really needs.
But it is immensely enjoyable, and shows tremendous promise for a series of movies to rival Bond for enduring appeal. With new mutants popping up all the time, there seems no reason why the saga can’t continue on film for many years.
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