The Long Road

05/11/2003 Archived Entry: "X-Men 2"

X-Men 2 is an awesome film. This film is better than the first in every way; music, acting, effects, plot, script, sets, costumes, action, everything. With the introduction of the X-Men and their world out of the way, this sequel can afford to pick things up assuming that we know who the X-Men are and what they can do. Really, they made X-Men so that they could make X-Men 2.

This sequel does an amazing job of giving each character a good amount of screen time. Most ensemble movies tend to focus mainly on one or two characters but X-Men 2, while still focusing on Wolverine, maintains a good balance between most of the other characters. Rogue and Professor X get a little less screen time now than in the first one, but we get to see and learn more about Jean Grey, Storm, Iceman, Mystique and Pyro, plus there is the addition of the extremely well executed Nightcrawler to the cast. The only character that I felt got short-changed was Cyclops. Compare X-Men 2’s excellent cast-juggling to the last few Star Trek movies where the captain gets more than ½ the screen time and most of the rest of the established crew get so little that it’s probably not worth it for them to even participate.

X-Men 2 opens with Nightcrawler’s attempt at assassinating the U.S. president. The scene is so well done. Nightcrawler’s teleportation is shown as a beautiful burst of light with blue smoke. From there, the movie shows us quite a few instances of mutants using their awesome powers, Storm’s evasion of fighter planes and Magneto’s escape from prison being the two other highlights. Magneto’s escape really shows off how immensely powerful the man is and how truly ruthless he can be, that scene is most likely my favorite ever, I think I was giggling for a good minute after seeing it. The movie does a great job at showing us how dangerous, useful and absolutely cool superpowers can be.

Though the action scenes are most likely what everyone will remember about the movie, X-Men 2 also touches heavily upon racism, which these characters have always been an allegory for. We get outright anger, hatred and even blame towards mutants from Stryker; he has no qualms about enslaving, torturing and experimenting on mutants to achieve genocide. Iceman’s family show the more casual prejudice and ignorant side of racism, blaming themselves for the way he was born and thinking that genetic traits can be something one can just turn off.

That last shot! What a cocktease of an ending, the very first time Jean’s eyes started burning, I was completely hoping they’d go headfirst into it, instead we get suspense. It would have almost been more satisfying had they made it as a cliffhanger with a full blown shot of what X-Men readers know is coming, instead of just a hint of it. Maybe they didn’t want to commit to any promises they may not be able to keep but dear god does it ever make me want to see the next one.

I have a few small complaints about the movie. First of all, not once in this film was our group of antagonists referred to as “X-Men”, not even in the opening credits where we only got the silly “X2”. Personally, I think a movie about the X-Men should at least have “X-Men” in the title. If you’ve read the comics, it’s easy to tell that the he plot was based on Chris Claremont’s “God Loves, Man Kills” and Mark Millar’s “Return to Weapon X” but those two writers got no credit whatsoever which is a little disappointing. It’s like they are ignoring the fact that these characters and this concept came from somewhere other than the filmmakers’ minds. And of course, Cyclops’s brutal treatment in the movie was not something I particularly enjoyed.

Cyclops not only disappears for a whole hour in the middle of the film, but when he’s on screen he only has two things to do, get beaten up and cry. Cyclops is supposed to be the field leader of the X-Men, the one whom everyone trusts without question because he always makes the right choice. He is super-protective of his team and if the X-Men ever lose a fight Cyclops and Wolverine would be the last two to go down. The movie doesn’t show us any of that, everyone else’s personalities are so well done, but they manage to mess up my favorite character. The ending does; however, promise us that there will be more Cyclops screen time in one of the upcoming sequels. I would really appreciate it if each X-Men movie from now on focused on a different subset of the X-Men. They keep adding to the team so obviously not everyone will get equal treatment in a particular film, but if the filmmakers got off their Wolverine-addiction (though he IS cool) and gave us movies centered on other characters then this franchise could probably go on forever.

But really, in the face of the greatness of this movie, all of my complaints just amount to fanboy quibble. This is the greatest superhero/comic book movie ever made it raises the bar so high; “there is no bar”.

Click here to see a list of all the 'name drops' that appear on Stryker's computer.

Overall 9/10

Replies: 8 comments

I'm thinking that Phoenix will come in at the end of X3 to save the day and then be the focus of X4. We'll see though.

Posted by Romer @ 05/11/2003 05:34 AM EST

i think the complete title of this movie is X2: X-Men United.

Posted by Katie @ 05/12/2003 01:53 PM EST

but at the beginning of the movie, we only see 'x2', besides 'x2: xmen united' sounds dumb anyways. the xmen are always united.

Posted by Rayne @ 05/13/2003 12:55 PM EST

If they're always united, then why are there two separate groups: the good and the bad?

Posted by Romer @ 05/13/2003 05:53 PM EST

The "X-Men" are professor X's group, the good. Magneto's group form "The Brotherhood". "mutants united" would have been less of a misnomer

Posted by Rayne @ 05/13/2003 07:13 PM EST

Ah yes, you're absolutely correct. In that case, yes, it is a strange title.

Posted by Romer @ 05/16/2003 02:27 AM EST

I ran across this page trying to figure out what the end of X2 means. I wasn't an X-Men fan before the movies, so I'm decidedly in the dark. What was that in the water?!

Posted by Casling @ 12/06/2003 09:05 PM EST

Essentially, Jean gets resurected as the Phoenix, one of the most powerful beings in the universe.

Posted by Rayne @ 12/07/2003 03:30 AM EST