Worthy sequel but understandably inferior to it's original

Rating: 8/10 (27 May 2006)

X-men 2 is what most sequels end up being...most good sequels anyways. It relies heavily on opening up the story set by the original, plays heavily on the best characters from the original and adds in some new ones for good measure. Bryan Singer returns to the helm for the second installment and continues treating the series like his baby and meticulously lays everything out. Everyone from the original cast returns and they even come up with a well done, and interesting new storyline that forces the two mutant sides who were enemies in the original, to now work together. The action sequences in the film are quite intense or plentiful as they were in the original and some of the great characters get a bit of a toned down story in this one which is unfortunate.
The entire main cast returns and they are still one of the best cast group in film history...especially Superhero films. Hugh Jackman is still basically the star and he's as good, if not even better than he was in the original. He doesn't do as much fighting but more of his story is explored. Everyone else in the film takes a rather toned down, back seat to Wolverine's story. In some ways this is a good thing and unfortunate in other ways. Whereas James Marsden's Cyclops seemed to be a terrific character with witty one liners and a great screen presence in the original, he's almost wrote right out of the second installment. He gets a couple of emotional scenes involving his love interest (the still very wooden Famke Janssen as Jean Grey) but his lack of tough leadership makes the emotional scenes seem out of place. The addition of some new characters are very welcomed and well done. Alan Cumming is brilliant and a great character as Nightcrawler. Seemingly a bad guy he turns out to be an amazing hero. Cumming's performance is great and I hope he returns in the future. The slightly increased role of Iceman played by Shawn Ashmore is decent and not overused thankfully. I think his young character could be easily an annoyance to the big action scenes. Brian Cox as the newest bad guy, William Stryker is good, although I don't know if he's good enough in the sense that he takes on some powerful adversaries including Magneto played brilliantly by Ian McKellen and Wolverine (Jackman.)
X2 relies heavily on it's story and it's purpose is likely to bring together the original installment and the supposed final installment currently in theaters. As a story driven Superhero film it really works but after the non-stop intense battles and action scenes from the original you definitely feel the absence of the really big battles. Still that's not to deter you from an amazing series with a deeply rich character driven story. This is one series that is worth seeing absolutely, even if you're not familiar with the X-men of comics. You'll become familiar with them, Singer has done an incredible job thus far. 8/10