If only all sequels could be like this...

Rating: 10/10 (30 April 2003)

Considering what happened with the Batman series, particularly after Tim Burton left, and considering what has happened in plenty other comic book adaptations such as Spider-Man or Daredevil, nobody would be blamed for having bet that an X-Men sequel would be a disaster. But X2: X-Men United, as it is billed here, is a sequel that can be mentioned in the same breath as Aliens or The Godfather Part II.
Like the original, this new sequel has something to say about how our society deals with people who don't look the same, act the same, think the same, or feel the same as all the drones out there. The spirit of the comic books it is based on is very much alive in this film, and that's a big part of what makes it such compelling viewing. In today's society, people with a serious mental illness will be rooting for characters like Wolverine, or Magneto if they have a sadistic side, all the way. In tomorrow's society it could be people who undergo genetic engineering to rid themselves of cancer or other horrible diseases. Who knows? That's the truly sad part of these stories - they only seem to either stay relevant or get more relevant as time goes on.
Ian McKellen is in fine, fine form as Magneto, the angry mutant whose justification for waging war on "normal" society is all but handed to him on a platter in this episode. Rebecca Romijn-Stamos actually gets to do something other than sit there and look pretty this time, and Halle Berry proves once again that she cannot act her way out of a wet paper bag. But once again, Hugh Jackman and Anna Paquin steal the show, in spite of the latter having a significantly reduced role compared to the first film. Shawn Ashmore also squeezes his head in and manages to prove he is there for a reason, too.
Unlike the original X-Men, in which the true bad guys are mostly undefined except for a rather nasty Senator, one will not be able to walk out of X2 without pathologically hating the bad guys here. Brian Cox plays the mad general so well that anyone with a truly compassionate bone in their body will want to leap into the picture and tear the head off the kind of man who could do THAT to his own son. And the film is all the stronger for it, because it brings the message that the normalists who would give us all gene tests when deciding who should live or die are the real bad guys, not the mutants who have been made bitter and angry by their behaviour. I know a whole family of utter creeps who would do well to be nailed into a chair and forced to watch this film with their eyes pried open, Ludivico-style.
I won't say anything about the ending except for two small points. One is that it makes Ray Park's line in the first film ("Don't you people ever die?") seem all the funnier, except it really isn't the sort of point where one should laugh. I did, but that is just the kind of person I am. The other is that it proves anyone in this film can out-act Halle Berry, even another former Bond girl, in this case Famke Janssen. She gives the film an end-sequence of the kind that I've only seen in other films like Gladiator and Rollerball (the real Rollerball, I mean).
To summarise, out of 125 minutes of near perfection, I have only three minor complaints. The editing of the final battle sequence, particularly when Patrick Stewart is in the new Cerebro, is a little too loose for my liking. Parts seem to have been repeated just to stretch out the running time. I also found Nightcrawler's constant prayer recitals annoying. If this was supposed to enforce the idea of Christian good guys, it doesn't work because we've seen before how their kind are little different from the William Stryker caste. Lastly, they really should have got someone other than Halle Berry to play Storm. I don't care who, just anyone. She is the biggest personality vortex I have ever seen on the big screen, and I kept expecting Anna Paquin to turn to her and say "I *earned* my Oscar".
But at the end of the day, I wish all sequels could be as good as this effort. Ten out of ten from me. It did lose a point because of the things I mentioned in the previous paragraph, but it gains it back (and then some) whenever Hugh Jackman or Anna Paquin say something. Those two should work together more often.