United we falter

Rating: 3/10 (7 May 2003)

Everyone seems to think that X2 is superior to its predecessor, merely on the account of its larger budget.
How unimaginative and superficial we've all become. X2 is a bloated, noisy, action-oriented sequel to a more thoughtful, far superior film. Special effects aside, everything about X2 is weaker. The massive cast prevents sufficient character development, the film is edited like an MTV video, and the plot meanders terribly.
The most interesting characters from the first film - Rogue and Magneto - are sidelined here. Ian McKellan is wasted in a minor role, and suddenly his morally ambiguous character - who was so fascinating in the first X-Men - is just evil, to the point where he taunts Rogue after having tortured her, and advocates the total destruction of humanity. Rogue, meanwhile, gets to have a poorly developed romance with Iceman - every bit as thin and unconvincing as Wolverine's romance with Jean Grey. Why bother hiring such talented actors as McKellan and Paquin if they must take a back seat to digital trickery and junior high school-caliber "romance"?
Alan Cumming makes a terrible Nightcrawler (I can do a better German accent - "my name eez Kurt Vagner," indeed!), and Halle Berry is once again a totally flat Storm. Brian Cox makes a cheesy villain (his name is Striker, for goodness' sake!), and his human troops are so outmatched by the mutants that he never provides a credible threat. In fact, the conflict is so imbalanced that I have to root for humanity - we're going to get our backsides kicked!
On the plus side...well, I liked Jean Grey, and Magneto's escape, but they weren't worth the ten bucks. Here's hoping that X3 gets its budget lowered, so it might turn out smarter than this soulless, cash-powered clunker.