The upping of the stakes and the going overboard of the sub-plots has the X-Men sequel just about pull through with an array of frequently imbalanced material.

Rating: 6/10 (7 October 2010)

Was the title "X-Men 2" really so long that we needed it abbreviated to form "X2"? As it happens, Bryan Singer's 2003 follow up to the reasonably pleasing a film from 2000 entitled X-Men is a little longer and a little baggier in its biting off more for us to chew on. Wheter it pulls off everything it decides to take on is one matter, whether it does it at all well another; the fact remaining right the way through to its closing credits that some of the more ordinary stuff on show is explored and granted much more time than some of the other content which may have been interesting. Sure, it has its shocks and its twists but it has its tendencies to conform and that's the most frustrating thing. Regardless, from its dramatic opening sequence of a mutant and his attempted 'hit' on the life of a fictitious American president, to the closing allegorical monologue from said man about mutants with clear allusions to the item of terrorism as we're told to 'acknowledge' this new phenomenon, X2 is an enjoyable if draggy experience which hits enough notes.
The bigger picture and generally wider spectrum of both character and narrative Singer was quite clearly setting up in the first film is here granted the room to flex its muscles. X2 sees an expansion in stakes and general atmosphere, a spreading out of its wings so as to encompass an all out war between human-beings and mutants when tempers fray between the species, corrupt government officials manipulate the circumstances around them and hardened relations between those within the fractions become greater. The film hops about all over the place in attempting to cover and develop each of the little sub-stories it's got going on, and it does a decent job of it overall. The strand running central, to all of Wolverine's (Jackman) journey of discovery as he tries to uncover how he became what he is; the love he has for Jean Grey (Janssen) but the love she has for Cyclops (Marsden) as well as Rouge's (Paquin) romance with Iceman (Ashmore) which interestingly runs on an idea revolving around how great harm will come to both of them if they kiss or attempt to express their love for one-another at such an age, is the captivity of chief Mutant villain Magneto (McKellen).
Regardless of what people think, the film channels The Silence of the Lambs and the imprisonment of Hannibal Lecter in Magneto's clothing; cell and demeanour. It's nice of the asylum staff to play him classical music seemingly on cue, and while it isn't The Goldberg Variations by Bach, it might as well be. The consistent presence of Brian Cox, whom actually portrayed Lecter in an earlier novel incarnation, adds further mirth to proceedings when there really ought not be any. Magneto's being held by a top American military official named William Stryker (Cox), whom wants nothing more than to stoke the fire between the two species. For Stryker, it's less-so business in his feuding with the mutants and more-so personal; his son, Jason, once a subject of Xavier's mutant school only to come home thoroughly less than well off and grossly affect the family situation as a result. We're told to conclude that Stryker is more evil than at first when it transpires he keeps a bunch of kidnapped infant mutants in a grim little cell within a secluded Arctic-like base much later on.
Like X-Men; the mutant's apparent superiority over the human's is presented, not by way of the imperious lead of the first in Wolverine as he wins bare knuckle boxing match after bare knuckle boxing match in an unruly part of town, but by way of new German mutant Nightcrawler (Cumming) and the aforementioned attempt on the American President's life. We sense trouble is unavoidably afoot after digesting such a sequence following on from an opening voice-over from the anchor character of the films so far in Professor Xavier (Stewart) while skirmishes out in the public eye do nothing to help. The sole surviving aide to Magneto from the first film arrives in the many forms of Mystique (Romijn), the earlier film going some way to paint freakish and disfigured portraits of Magneto's other aides with Xavier's then-and-now subjects much more handsome and more beautiful in their appearance. Here, all mutants are briefly aligned and the film has fun in its retaining of the one bodily 'scarred' character from the first, whom just happens to be able to change form as temporary new identities and allies themselves are forged. Singer has additional fun in constructing suspenseful sequences in which Mystique must infiltrate government zones and we have to remind ourselves that we want her to get away with it.
Alas, each and every one of the strands X2 takes on seems to overwhelm the next; the film hints at some bigger, brasher and more interesting things when one younger mutant is discussing the correlation between his mutant persona and human-being persona with the all powerful Magneto. The inference being that it's probably better to be 'Pyro' than 'John Allerdyce'. The film is a flabby actioner, its meshing of content for all ages ranging from the adolescent with the more adult to the fact veteran actors Patrick Stewart; Ian McKellen and Brian Cox all feature prominently making for an odd experience of action orientated frills and more mature issues. Its formulaic finale and gradually more and more conformist to spectacle attitude is one of its more chief faults, but there is edible entertainment to be had out of X2; a digestible comic book adaptation from a director we feel relaxed to be in the hands of.