X-Men 2 (2003)

20th Century Fox

After watching X-Men last week for the first time in a few years, I decided to follow-up with its sequel, X2. I don’t think X2 is better than the original but it’s nearly as enjoyable. The cast and director from the first are pretty much the same but there are also new characters, like Nightcrawler, who is played by Alan Cumming. Cumming is pretty funny because the times he’s asked who he is, he replies with his full name, “Kurt Wagner from the Munich Circus…”, yet he’s always interrupted.

I liked how the cast returned for this sequel because everyone from the first was given more to do. There seems to be equal time between the many subplots- Rogue and Ice Man’s relationship, Magneto’s escape, introducing Nightcrawler to the team of the X-Men; however this movie seems to shift its focus onto Wolverine, which is even more obvious in the following movie. Magneto is still the most fun to watch though. I liked his escape from the prison because it’s really grandiose and over the top, but I wouldn’t want anything less from Magneto. Now even though I thought Magneto was the most fun to watch, Hugh Jackman really does embody the part of Wolverine. I can’t fault the producers for deciding to make him the star of the series because it’s a surefire money-maker. What surprised me though was they increased the “violence” from Wolverine and let him go wild by slashing everybody in sight with his claws.

The only negatives with the movie are actually the same faults of the first, mostly due to Cyclops. The role of the X-Men’s team leader is so wasted here, it’s almost criminal. Though its hard to tell if it was poor writing or that James Marsden was miscast. The plot of this movie, which is using Cerebro to locate mutants all over the world, would have worked better in the first movie. Or maybe they read my mind and attempted to fix the plot from the previous movie. Either way, this movie made the most out of what it was given; it's almost good in spite of the flaws.