An Excellent Sequel

Rating: 8/10 (16 November 2008)

I enjoyed the original X-Men film so looked forward to seeing the second in the series, I was not disappointed. All of the mutants who survived the first film are back in this one along with a few new ones, most notably Nightcrawler, played by Alan Cumming who we first see as he enters the White House and appears to make an attempt on the presidents life.
This attack is used as an excuse to raid Professor Xavier's school by General Stryker (Brian Cox). Simultaneously he captures the Professor and Cyclops while they are visiting Magneto in his plastic prison and Storm and Jean are attempting to find the mutant who attacked the president. Luckily Stryker's team don't manage to capture all of the people at the school, several including Wolverine, Rogue, Iceman and Pyro escape. These four head to Boston to meet up with Storm and Jean, before meeting them however they end up in a confrontation with the police that could make matters worse for the mutants. While all this has being going on Magneto has escaped from prison with the help of his shape-shifting sidekick Mystique.
Given the threat posed to mutant kind by Stryker the remaining X-Men form an unlikely alliance with Magneto so they can free the Professor before he is tricked into doing Stryker's dirty work for him.
As with the previous film the acting, direction and special effects are very good, if anything the characters are better, I found Nightcrawler to be more interesting than the two mutants that were killed off in the first film and Brian Cox was impressive as General Stryker. If you haven't seen the original film I'd advise you watch it first as it introduces most of the characters and explains what skills they each have.