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Rating: 6/10 (5 May 2003)

First and foremost, I enjoyed this film. Second and secondly, it was too long. It started out well, with a strange entity/mutant teleporting about in a frenzy, threatening the president and taking on the secret service men. But afterwards, it seemed to take on exact feel as the last movie, with no real plot twists (except the end, which seemed a little out of the blue), or character changes. Of course, it is integral to keep on the old characters with their personalities intact from the last film, however, there were few or no new characters or character changes (excepting the end). We bravely went exactly where we went before. Wolverine is on a quest to discover his past, in which we are once again denied knowing who he was and why he was given his adamantium skeleton. (He also is still sexually frustrated about Dr. Jean Gray). Mutants are under threat by panicky and controlling humans, and humans are once again threatened by the renegade mutants bent on destruction. Magneto has an ugly red helmet, and a blue shape shifting sidekick, motiveless in her seduction of Wolverine (and what was with her turning into Stryker once as supposedly part of Wolverine's sexual fantasy?). We miss cutie-patootie Cyclops through half of the movie, and the fight scenes, while fast-paced and action packed, do nothing to continue the pace of the film, which considerably drags. Particularly when the X-Men are up north in the frigid outback (again), and lost for hours (seemingly), in the tunnels of Skylark's domain. I also now know, every panel of Prof. Xavier's mind controlling orb, Cerebro. This movie's plot could have been carried out in an hour and a half, instead of over two. I do not regret the $7.00 I spent on this film. It was a relatively pleasant way to spend a Friday evening, however, I was not as intruiged as by the first film, and unfortunately expected a bit more than a cookie-cutter marvel comic book to film.