Good movie, good sequel, poor stand-alone

Rating: 8/10 (6 September 2005)

While sequels are meant to follow other movies, typically, if you don't see the original movie, the sequel will still stand on its own.
This is *not* the case with this movie. This is one of those sets of movies that I had never gotten around to watching, and the only copy of the original that Blockbuster had was on VHS, so I skipped it and thought I would be able to watch the sequel without watching the original.
WRONG!
There is so much back story that you miss out on without watching the original (unless you're a comic book fan who has all these details memorized). Walking into the second movie knowing nothing about the original, you spend over half of your time trying to catch up on the characters, how they're related, what each one's power is.
Visually, it's absolutely stunning, and the plot seems to work out well enough.... if you have accepted the original premise that mutants exist, it's an enjoyable movie...