My favourite comic-book conversion

Rating: 10/10 (16 March 2008)

X-Men is my favourite Comic Book Series and I loved it when it made it to the silver screen. X-Men was a good film in it own right, but it was really an introduction, especially to people who didn't know the comics. I love X-Men because of its themes of alienation and how to use power. I also love the fact that most of characters, heroes and villains have an ideology, compared to most other comics where the villains are either looking to make a lot of money or conquer the world.
X-Men 2 continues a few months after the first film. Nightcrawler (Alec Cumming), tries to assassinate the US President which was one amazing scene and starts the film on a high note. An military scientist Stryker, played by Brain Cox, uses the attack as justification for attacking Xavier's school. Events spiral out of control, Xavier is kidnapped by Stryker and Magneto escapes from prison. X-Men and Magneto are forced to ally with each other to save mutant kind. The film introduces new characters, Nightcrawler and Stryker as already mentioned. Colossus had a brief scene in the film, and other additions were Pyro and Lady Deathstrike. Brain Cox and Alec Cumming's performance were particularly good in my opinion, Cox is normally gives a good performance. Pyro was also fun, especially when he takes on the police outside Bobby Drake's/Iceman's house. Iceman also has a bigger part in this film, especially because of his relationship with Rogue. The film does build on the characters and that was why Bryan Singer's version worked because he focuses on them and the film was the X-Men with action, and not action with the X-Men which what happened in the third film. Singer also took on the film as an outsider because he was never a film of the comics. He was able to cut off some of the stuff that wasn't needed, made the series realistic and did his research on the characters and the story. The film also had some brilliant action scenes, and at times was surprising violence. As already mentioned the opening scene and Pyro attack on the police were great, and so was Magneto's escape from prison, the army raid on the school, the Wolverine vs. Nightcrawler fight and when the Blackbird had to escape for the US air force. In my opinion the action in this film is the best in the series.
The film ended with setting up a Phoenix/Dark Phoenix storyline, but the filmmakers didn't capitalise on the opportunity. Loosing Bryan Singer and his writing team was really felt in X-Men 3 and made that film it a disappointment. Just focus on the first two films and ignore the third one.