"You picked the wrong house, bub."

Rating: 8/10 (24 May 2014)

As you might expect, the first X-Men movie was a huge success, both financially and critically. A sequel was inevitable. But what would it be about?
You can tell this is a bigger production, both in the special effects and in the fact that he expanded the cast. All of the X-Men from the first film return; there is also an increased role for a lot of the smaller characters, like Iceman and Pyro. Plus, we get Nightcrawler as played by Alan Cumming. This movie also teams the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants with the X-Men to take on a brand new set of bad guys, including Brian Cox's William Stryker and Kelly Hu as Lady Deathstrike.
It combined the themes and characters of that story with a bunch of elements from Wolverine's back-story. As much as it juggles a larger cast, this movie really is focused on Wolverine, which is an interesting change from the first movie's fake-out of being all about Rogue.
But the trade-off is what they did with Nightcrawler: a mutant who has a faith in Catholicism, which is unheard of because all of the mutants here believe in themselves. However, Nightcrawler puts his faith in God, something that has not been established in the X-Men Universe. He looks like a demon, someone that is vile in Christianity and Catholicism, but he's actually a super-nice guy. Not only does this movie deal with mutants vs. humans, but also the belief of faith, and what it means.
The action here is really great. Again, it's exactly what you want to see from an X-Men movie, and with a few exceptions, it looks good. The teleportation effect is particularly solid, and when it's combined with Nightcrawler taking out Secret Service guys by doing teleporting moves, it's like comic pages brought to life.
However, it feels a bit convoluted. There's just so much going on, that when you stop and think about it, it doesn't add up. Whereas, in the first movie, it was a simpler story that flowed easily. This one is a bigger movie, with lots going on. There's Wolverine trying to figure out his past, Stryker and his plans, rescuing Xavier, the romance between Rogue and Ice-Man, there's just too much going on.
In my opinion, it is better than the first one, though not by much. Whilst it is a bigger project, it just somewhat loses focus. I don't know what I would rather have: a simpler story that flowed but was somewhat edited, or a bigger story that has some narrative flow but is edited well. But I still highly recommend it, especially if you're an X-Men fan.