X2 (20th Century Fox)
In Theatres Now!
Review by Sparrow
I'm
an old school comic book fan, like many other males in their 20s. We
have been hit with an assault of incredibly bad comic book to movie
conversions over the years though. If anyone remembers the original
Spiderman/Captain America/Hulk and that atrocious Punisher movies you
already know exactly what I mean.
The first X-Men movie while not the greatest film to hit the theatres was one of the most entertaining conversions that we've seen so far. It really has only been surpassed by the original Batman movie. Now, when the X-Men sequel went into production my first thought went to the lame sequels that came out after the standout original in the Batman series. So I was very prepared to have my hopes of a decent movie thrashed.
Hold on...Marvel has actually been
able to pull off what I thought impossible and FINALLY get one right,
apart from the recent Spideman 
box
office blowout of course. X2 in nearly every way met the qualities of
the first, and then shot right past it in all others. There will always
be the fanatics though that think that every aspect of the movie should
be taken literally out of the comic books storylines...well...I'm not
a fan of literalists when it comes to the bible and it's no different
when it comes to this movie. Just sit back, enjoy yourself, and try
to forget the few hundred X-Men comic books you've read for a couple
of hours is my advice.
The
storyline, while predictable, was solid. Most of the characters have
seen actual development from the first movie. The most noteable of this
is Wolverine dispaying his berzerker nature. Surprisingly enough they
went as far as to have Wolverine shedding blood. It was fabulous to
see those adamantium claws in action. The elevated participation of
the younger mutants, like Pyro and Iceman, gave the storyline a sense
of new beginnings, mishandling of their abilities, and fear of conflict
that was refreshing.
Of course, the introduction of my
favourite German blue elf Nightcrawler has been the standout for many,
and with good reason. Alan Cumming played the role with near flawlessness.
The action sequences 
involving
his acrobatics and legendary teleporting were were also incredibly well
done. One of the best notes about this character though is that they
brought over the religious aspect of Nightcrawler which gave him much
needed depth that many of the other characters severely lack...i.e.
Storm and Cyclops.
My only real complaint is one that I can't specify too much, without giving away major parts of the storyline. I wish that these comic book movies would STOP killing characters off. Batman did it and it screwed them out of their #1 villain, which they have never fully recovered from. Daredevil also nuked a main character that was integral to possible future storylines. Who got whacked in X2? Well, you'll have to go see it to find out.
Rating: 6/7