MOVIE REVIEW

X2: X-Men United  (2003)

Starring: Patrick Stewart, Hugh Jackman, Ian McKellan
Director: Bryan Singer

Rating: PG-13

Studio: 20th Century Fox

Review Posted: 5.2.03

Spoilers: Minor

By Sara Michelle Fetters

"Fun in the Key of X"

There is a glorious early moment in X2: X-Men United where the hard-boiled point of the X-universe is humorously – and potently – revealed. Young Bobby Drake (Shawn Ashmore) has just brought his young girlfriend and one of the teachers from his private school, Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters, home and he’s not too sure how this is going to play with the family. When you’re teacher is the adamantium-clawed Wolverine (Hugh Jackman), your lady is the life-sucking ingénue Rogue (Anna Paquin) and you’re known around school as "Iceman" for your ability to freeze things at will, hoping for parental acceptance is anything but a no-brainer.

"Have you ever tried not being a mutant," asks his concerned mother, confused and bewildered that her son has turned out so drastically different than she could had ever hoped. It’s a funny, profound and deeply moving moment, young Drake realizing that his life in the eyes of his parents will never live up to their more modest expectations. Substitute homosexuality, gender dysphoria or a litany of other supposed "choices" that really aren’t, and Stan Lee’s Marvel universe stays as profound and ahead of its time in the 21st century as it was over five decades earlier when the comic auteur first put the pen to paper.

Granted, X2 isn’t all hard talk and tough choices; this is a superhero movie after all. Life for the different isn’t just moody pathos and glum melodrama, it’s also a bunch of hyper-kinetic butt kicking, and these mutants know all about that. Any fan of the 2000 original can tell you that, but director Bryan Singer and company outdo themselves this time around. Armed with a bigger budget and a better – if overly cluttered – script, X2 is a rarity of a sequel that’s superior to the original.

Taking no time to recap what occurred in original (mutant rights legislation, Wolverine heading off into the Alaskan tundra, Magneto stuck inside a plastic prison), the second adventure blasts right off with the intro of the disappearing/reappearing blue-skinned demon Nightcrawler (Alan Cumming) invading the White House. This event leads to the mysterious Gen. Stryker (Brian Cox) being allowed to mount a military operation into the aforementioned school, bringing teachers Storm (Halle Berry), Cyclops (James Marsden), Dr. Jean Grey (Famke Jannsen), Wolverine and all of their students under fire.

If this wasn’t bad enough, Magneto (Ian McKellan) has escaped, Prof. Xavier (Patrick Stewart) is missing and the shape-shifting Mystique (Rebecca Romijn-Stamos) is on the loose working her own hidden agenda. And what can the X-Men make of Nightcrawler? Is he a misunderstood potential friend or was his hit on the President a cleverly designed ploy engineered to help Stryker and his nefarious assistant Lady Deathstrike (Kelly Hu) start the systematic hunting down of all mutants?

It can be said quite clearly, X2 has a lot on its plate; too much, actually. There is so much plot and so many new characters, it’s a bit difficult to keep track of them all. It’s difficult, but not impossible. Singer looks to be so much more comfortable with the material this time around, and if there is too much going on he somehow manages to juggle it all into a cohesively entertaining whole. This is a darn-entertaining popcorn muncher of a Hollywood thrill ride, and Singer knows when to push down on the throttle.

No fool when it comes to casting (just check out The Usual Suspects), he’s assembled an excellent ensemble to help him out. By this point, McKellan and Stewart could read the proverbial phone book and I’d probably pay to see them play a scene together and they don’t disappoint here. Jackman continues to make me swoon (and create a deeply rich character), Paquin is totally empathetic and Romijn-Stamos – blue scales and all – is eerily magnetic.

Of the newbees, both Cox and Cumming are perfectly cast. Stryker is a role the veteran Cox could play in his sleep yet he still manages to make him a tightly wound figure of genocidal evil. Cumming is even better; looking like a devil and spouting scripture, Nightcrawler is a moving and delicate creation and he gives the type of performance you just don’t see in a film filled to the brim with superheroes. If there is one thing to remember about X2 (other than the too-cool wispy blue-smoke of Nightcrawler’s vanishing acts), it is the tragically moving demon and his innate desire to reconnect with his own perceived lost humanity.

It would be easy to talk more about this new X-Men adventure, but too much more than this would be like eating cheesecake without the strawberry topping. And even if the ending is an all-too familiar hook leading to an inevitable third adventure, I say so what. If X3 is half as satisfying as this second installment, than watching it on a cool summer’s day in a darkly lit theater would be most pleasurable indeed.

Rating: 3.5 out of 4

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