The Unbearable Coolness of Being a Mutant

Rating: Null/10 (26 April 2003)

Coming out of the theatre after over two hours of one of the most thrilling cinematic joyrides of this young millenium, I can only think of two losers from this second installment of the X-Men franchise: Storm and Cyclops ... and we shall see why later.
The biggest winners, on the other hand, are the audience. Being one of the year's big event movies, X2: X-Men United surely delivered on the hype, treating us to one of the best superhero film adaptations in recent memory.

The movie leaps and sprints off to a frenetic start, assaulting the senses with every cool thing Hollywood money can buy, and not letting up for the duration of the movie. The story begins with a mutant's assassination attempt on the President right in the White House, which sparks an anti-mutant hysteria among the populace. This emboldens the movie's main villain, retired military scientist William Stryker, who is bent on putting an end to the entire mutant race while using mutants themselves to realize his fiendish designs. Stryker, with the full might of the US military behind him, then launches a treacherous night-time raid on Professor Xavier's School For Gifted Youngsters, leaving the beleaguered X-Men with no choice but to unite with their recently escaped arch-nemesis Magneto, hence the title.
There are noteworthy subplots as well, including Iceman's coming-out to his family about his mutant-ness, Wolverine's origin, and an uncanny twist that sees a major character in an act of self-sacrifice. Finally, even the last scene managed to append one last hint of what is to come, which certainly got those comicbook fans in the know, including this author, excited and drooling in anticipation for X3, which by the time it is released should probably be getting a better, more innovative title.
As with all sequels, this one is no different in being freed from the constraints of plot establishment and character introduction. And quite adeptly, director Bryan Singer, along with screenwriters Michael Dougherty and Dan Harris, made full use of their added screen time (this sequel, clocking in at 135 mins, is even longer than the first) to give us more action, special effects and lots of new interesting characters.

And how delicious those new ones are, most notably the aforementioned Bible-quoting Nightcrawler, and the sweet, menacing Lady Deathstrike, who gets to fight Wolverine, adamantium-for-adamantium, in one of the film's numerous highlights. There is also Pyro, played strikingly by a brooding Aaron Stanford (of Tadpole fame), who gets his own moment to display his fearsome fire-manipulation powers.
Indeed, with this film, Singer comes out of the geek closet - with a bang! - and successfully tells a story much like a comic book: pulp fiction with flashy eye-candy illustrations. And that is not a bad thing in this case! Singer et al perfectly synergized, as clichéd as it sounds, the magic of movie-making with the storytelling simplicity and surrealistic inspiration that gets us all addicted to superhero comicbooks once in our lives. And the result is a sheer sense of wonderment and awe, the kind we feel whenever we see anything `cool', and we can only exclaim to ourselves, `this is what movies are all about: pure delightful entertainment, period.'

This is not to say however, that the film is devoid of any real-life relevance. On the contrary, it actually echoes many of the events that we continue to witness presently: warmongers dictating policy, minorities being persecuted or marginalized and the McCarthyist witchhunts they are subjected to, and innocents being the ultimate victims. The main conflict of the film franchise, and indeed of the entire, hopelessly convoluted comicbook-based X-Men saga, is humankind's inability to comprehend and accept anything that is different from it. What could be more universal and familiar themes than intolerance and discrimination? And for balancing these delicate subject matters with something as frivolous as a blue-skinned teleporter, AND actually making it work well enough that we all happily suspend our disbelief, which was difficult to do for other failed superhero films like Batman and Robin, this film comes out as a winner in its genre.

And as for the aforementioned losers? Well, the two biggest losers from the previous X-Men movie managed to make it two-in-a-row.
First is Storm, who again gets the award for the worst hair-do ever of a superhero. From the original's bangs faux pas, she now gets a Farrah Fawcette-meets-Bonnie Raitt do-over, which is just as bad as the previous one! I couldn't help but wonder what the hell the production designers were thinking when they decided to give her this hideous hairstyle! Probably too high on Starbucks caffeine, all of them. I mean really, how hard is it to just do it the way fine illustrators like Romita and Lee do it in comic books? Long, thick and flowing, and without the bangs, dammit! I still maintain that Halle Berry, her Oscar notwithstanding, as Storm is one of the most unfortunate miscasts of all time. Ororo as we know her, and as I have grown to love, in comicbooks is an African princess, regal, dignified and tall, none of which are attributes I can see in Berry's Storm.

But Storm's cinematic travails do not compare to Cyclops', AGAIN the movie's worst loser. The poor guy gets shafted once more in this film, getting relegated to the sidelines even worse than the first time. Before, he was at least took part in important fights, whereas here, he is hardly seen. Pity for Cyclops, who is actually a major character in the comic books, and pity for James Marsden, the character who plays him. Mr. Marsden ought to give the writers, or his agent , or anyone responsible for this kind of shabby treatment, a good red-glared stare.
Will these two unlucky mutants make it three-times-a-charm in the next X-Men movie? This writer probably wouldn't mind, as long as we get treated again to the fantastic unfolding of the X-Men mythos that this sequel proved to be.