THE FOLLOWING REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS OF THE DISCUSSED FILM. READERS DISCRETION IS ADVISED.
With X-Men being a success in 2000, no one should have been surprised with a sequel coming around. And boy did it pack a big punch.
PLOT
X2 opens with a blue skinned teleporting mutant attempting to assassinate the United States President (Cotter Smith). Professor Charles Xavier is able to track him down at Boston. There, Jean Grey and Storm find him, revealing his name to be Kurt Wagner aka Nightcrawler. He only remembered not controlling himself as it happened, implying he was drugged. Logan aka Wolverine returns to babysit the students while Charles and Scott Summers aka Cyclops (James Marsden) visit Erik Lehnsherr aka Magneto. However, both are abducted by Yuriko Oyama, an accomplice of William Stryker, a military scientist who experiments on mutants. He sends soldiers to invade Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters, abducting some of the students. While one group is able to escape, the other group included: Logan, Rogue (Anna Paquin), her boyfriend Bobby Drake aka Iceman who can create ice and freeze objects, and his friend John Masterson aka Pyro who manipulates fire. That group heads to Boston where Storm and Jean are near. They reside at Bobby's house until they pick them up. With the aid of Mystique (Rebecca Romjin) from the outside, Magneto is able to escape from the plastic prison he was captive in. At a hidden base, William is holding Charles and Cyclops captive. Because his son Jason has the ability to mind control others, he uses him to make Charles kill every mutant on the planet with his hand built Cerebro, revealing he was responsible for Kurt's attack. When Bobby tells his family of his powers, his brother calls the cops on him. This leads to Pyro attacking the police in self defense until Storm & Jean arrive with the X-Jet. They are followed by two fighters and Storm is able to fend off against them when summoning tornadoes, but one of the jets fire two missiles before ejecting. Jean is able to destroy one of them with her new 'Phoenix' abilities but is unable to destroy the last one. The second missile hits them but Magneto is able to save the X-Men from crashing. He later explains to them Stryker's plan from what he and Mystique know. He also mentions how Stryker is responsible for Wolverine's adamantium skeleton and amnesia. Jean reads Kurt's mind to discover that the base is in an underground dam at Alkali Lake. The following day, Mystique disguises herself as Logan to infiltrate the base and let the rest of them in. Storm & Kurt rescue the abducted children, while Jean fights a mind controlled Cyclops, which damages the dam and causes it to rupture. Before getting to Stryker, Wolverine fights Yukio to death, who has adamantium fingernails. Magneto gets to Cerebro II to stop Charles. Instead of freeing his friend, Mystique tricks Jason to use his powers to target humans. The two leave with Pyro, who was swayed by his views. Storm & Kurt infiltrate Cerebro II and rescue the professor after creating a snowstorm which broke Jason's concentration. They leave Jason as the dam falls apart. Wolverine says goodbye to Stryker, who was strapped to a wall by Magneto, after discovering he volunteered for the procedure after all this time. The water then engulfs the dam, killing Stryker. Because of it struggling to take flight after losing power, Jean leaves the X-Jet and takes it in the air with her powers before the water rushes towards them. This allegedly takes her life as she is swept away by the water. Before going back to the mansion, the X-Men give the president Stryker's files and Charles explains that in order to build peace, mutants and humans must work together. This film ends with a Phoenix like shape appearing at Alkali Lake.
THOUGHTS
When watching this film as a kid in the 2000s, I recall enjoying this film only 10 times more than I had with the first film. Years later, I still feel the same way. The reason that this is a better than film is because the lore of these characters and this dystopia are well crafted and not misused, at least not until the follow ups. There is great action like Wolverine defending the mansion and great visuals like Storm's tornadoes, that will continue to hold up for a long while. I can't ignore the great score from John Ottman because with it makes the film more epic than ever. I still can't get over the Easter egg we got from here was when we see list a various names when Mystique is browsing through Yuriko’s computer. We see names such as: Eric Lensherr (Magneto), Ororo Munroe (Storm), Maximoff (2) which implies the twins Pietro aka Quicksilver and Wanda aka Scarlet Witch, Jamie Madrox who would appear in The Last Stand, Remy LeBeau aka Gambit who we’d see in X-Men Origins Wolverine, and Danielle Moonstar who we wouldn’t see until The New Mutants. There was even separate files in another computer’s with even more Easter eggs. We see names such as: Victor Creed (Sabretooth), Kurt, Scott, John, Katharine Pryde (Shadowcat), Bobby, Morlocks, Forge, and Franklin Richards. The last three names never made it to the screen but this was a treat. The dynamic of the X-Men aligning with Magneto and Mystique was handled very well because it’s not every film where you see the heroes team up with a villain against a greater threat. I respect that they didn't add the implication of Mystique being the mother of Nightcrawler when the two characters had a scene together. It is something from the comics that can be explored on film but it would be misplaced if done here. Nothing could beat Magneto as the best villain of this franchise. Sir Ian Mckellen is still great at this time making him one who is willing to help as long as he gets what he wants. The fact that he allowed his friend to almost die is arguably the most remorseless moment he’s ever had in the series, backing up the case that he’s always a villain. Brian Cox makes it a close call for William Stryker being the best villain because he is quickly seen as intimidating yet despicable. I mean, a man who experiments mutants no matter what age, that is just the easiest way to hate you. The only continuity error for this movie is the design of the Weapon X surgery room because it clearly doesn't look the same as the one from X-Men Origins:Wolverine. I remember Lady Deathstrike from the 90s animated series and seeing her her caught me off guard in a good way, because Kelly Hu makes her a bigger badass of a villain characters would expect from her given time. I thought it was cool briefly seeing the character Colossus during the 'mansion invasion' scene and I have nothing against Daniel Cudmore, but it felt unnecessary white-washing the character because he is famously written as Russian in the comics. Thankfully, that is fixed in the Deadpool movies. Sir Patrick Stewart gave a challenging perspective of Charles Xavier as he was at his most vulnerable at this point of the series until 2017's Logan. Seeing the dynamic on how he’s in an illusion thinking he’s doing good, only to see that he’s unaware of a grave mistake was arguably haunting to see. When Storm helps him break free, it was a relief to witness. For Aaron Stanford, he plays Pyro very well as a rebel that was bound to go down a bad route. For someone on film who is willing to use his powers in public and the way he does it, you know you can't trust him no matter how badass it looks. His scene with Magento is very poignant to witness because he is the only one who encouraged him to embrace his powers, hence the only reason he chose to be by his side by the end. Of all the new the characters I liked the most, it will easily be Nightcrawler. Aside from being an immediate badass from the first moment we, Alan Cumming is at perfection expressing his humanity and religion. His scene with Halle Berry's Storm on their characters' different perspectives is also so well acted because is on point between both actors. It disappoints me how we wouldn’t see this character again within a decade later. All of the returning characters had a fair amount of growth but Jean Grey and Iceman got me interested the most. For Jean, the power of the phoenix had a clever foreshadow of what would be the main plot for The Last Stand. Famke Janssen is still great at making her the most well spoken. You respect her for telling Logan that she still chose to be with Scott because it would be so wrong for her to dump him for someone else when he was absent. Yes Wolverine is the fan favorite and it would be cool if he got the girl but it would just feel wrong. For Shawn Ashmore, he was lucky enough to create depth for his character Iceman because he definitely had a lot to carry when the focus was on him. He had to cope with not exactly having a normal relationship with Rogue due to her powers and he had to tell his family about his, dealing with the backlash. I give a lot of credit to the latter scene because it gave a vibe of someone coming out and confronting their family of their identified sexual orientation. Last but not least, Hugh Jackman becomes the star at this point of the series, due to how invested we get with Wolverine’s arc. Seeing how desperate he wanted to know what happened to him as much as he did, of course you want to root for him but then you feel bad knowing it was his own fault. One thing I respected a lot from the character is how he tells Scott that Jean chose her boyfriend no matter what. He didn’t have to but he knew it’d be wrong not to let him know she loved him to the end. There is no doubt that this was an awesome film, but it didn't change a few flaws I caught onto upon my multiple rewatches. For example, does anyone get suspicious when Mystique stops impersonating Kelly? I know I would and it's odd it ain't acknowledged by the time we get to The Last Stand. And who the hell opened the door before Wolverine could during the house raid? I really don't think the wind from that helicopter did the trick. And how come Charles never came up with a bypass apart from eye scans to ensure wouldn't be hacked again? The fact that he didn't looks like he want it to be hacked. Also, Wolverine has a great sense of smell and it was at great use when Stryker’s crew invaded. Yet he doesn’t recognize Mystique’s smell when she’s disguised as Jean? He recognized it when she was disguised as Storm in the first movie, but why didn’t he recognize it here? Of course it looked easy to be seduced but it feels like he should recognize it either way. Other than that, this movie is still awesome for what it is. Seeing all of these arcs come together so fluently taught me to never let anyone else's opinions define how to approach the rest of your life because only your opinion matters. In short, X2 is the kind of sequel people should continue to take notice because this is how it handle the film's lore and character depths without over doing it. If you enjoy what we got from Bryan Singer the first time around, then you will likely fall in love with this sequel as well.
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