A feast for the eyes and senses!

Rating: 9/10 (2 May 2003)

I loved it! I saw it opening night and myself and a sold out theater cheered and applauded throughout. I think the trick here is being a fan to begin with. I've read a lot of comments by people who might be completely competent movie
reviewers, but can't possibly understand what this movie means to a comics fan, and particularly an X-men fan. This movie delivers! We get to see our
childhood heroes brought brilliantly to life, we get incredible fantasy action sequences, and strangely enough the dialogue is not lame and the characters
are not flat. Far too often in CGI loaded adventures, as in the last two Star Wars tragedies or Daredevil, the director gets to playing with his bluescreen toys and forgets about everything else. Not here. Reminding me of why the original Star Wars trilogy succeeded where it's prequals failed, this movie has people in it, not just characters with names that encounter events and occasionally say
words to advance the action, but people, flesh and blood characters who are not interchangeable, despite some of them being buried in seven hours of make-up. This was my favorite comic series as a kid and I offer many thanks to director Singer, who could not have pulled this off so brilliantly if he weren't a fan himself. I'll say this: If you are one of those that takes themselves so seriously that you can't lower yourself to be truly interested in superhero movies, you don't belong in the theater watching this one. Despite its poignant social commentary, you won't be able to see the forest for the trees. This film is for funlovers, and dreamers, and the open-minded. It is better than almost all previous attempts at fantasy-action films, and on a fairly equal par with Lord of the Rings. You may feel a little "left out" if you go with a Marvel Comics reader or sit too near a pack of the same, as we have "oohs" and "ahs" and private guilty pleasures at any
minute reference to a world that was fullly sculpted for us long ago in color illustration. We love these guys, Wolverine, Prof X, Nightcrawler, even Magneto, and we're mainly hoping that what has been around for years and years will, in this new forum, be done justice. We're all holding our breaths and hoping the Hollywood desire to cater to the lowest common denominator to sell more
tickets won't mess up the continuity of the Marvel world or fail the characters. We go in with fingers crossed and hope they don't "mess it up." And THIS,... THIS is one of the very few times that we don't get let down. THIS is justice. THIS is success. THIS kind of movie is one that I'll be proud to own and watch a dozen times a year. If you haven't seen the first X-MEN movie, do yourself a favor and do so before plopping down in front of X-2. It will help you. If you read X-men while growing up and you're hoping with fingers crossed
that this 2nd movie will be at least as good as the first, I bring you news of joy. This one, in my unhumble opinion, is better than the first. It is full of rewards, it lacks compromise, and it has stuff in it that will leave you drooling for X-3. We made it through another test. We have another excellent movie to bow down to. Matrix Reloaded opens next week. I've got my fingers crossed.