More ambitious, but better?

Rating: Null/10 (10 May 2003)

The sequel to 2000's X-Men is certainly a more ambitious film than its predecessor, and, in many ways, a superior film as well. Director Bryan Singer has built on the strengths of the original and added more action, and the results are effective.
We pick up almost exactly from where we left off in the first film. Professor Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart) and his band of X-Men face an even tougher challenge than last time round. after an attack on the US president by a mutant known as Nightcrawler (Alan Cumming). Thus General William Stryker (Brian Cox) who has always been opposed to mutants, vows to begin a full scale war against them. So this means that Xavier must team up with Magneto (Ian McKellen) and his colleagues - thus explaining the film's subtitle, `X-Men United'. In an ensemble piece such as this, acting is generally irrelevant, but everyone does what you'd expect from them. The newcomers, which include Nightcrawler, Pyro (Aaron Stanford) and Lady Deathstrike (Kelly Hu, from The Scorpion King), all fit into place seamlessly. Also, Jean Grey (Famke Janssen), Storm (Halle Berry) and Mystique (Rebecca Romijn-Stamos) get more screen time than before, although the same can't be said for James Marsden's Cyclops.
At 2 hours and 10 minutes, you'd think Singer was aiming for a Superman-like epic with this film. You get the feeling that he wants to humanise most of the ensemble - however, their size, along with the time required for the action scenes, ensures that this task is doomed to failure. As a result, we never really identify strongly with anyone (with the possible exception of Hugh Jackman's Wolverine). This weakens the emotional impact of some important scenes. That said, some viewers may have been dissatisfied had too long been spent on character-building and less on action. But, truth be told, you cannot please everyone, and Singer has done probably the best he could have done with the material at his disposal.
The greater emphasis on action in this sequel has given us more chances to see the mutants' powers - and some powers they are too. And there's also the (now obligatory) smart in-jokes, though they're generally not as clever as the original's.
So, in a nutshell, X2 is a bigger, brighter and louder version of X-Men that delivers just as much, if not more, than the original, while also standing up well on its own terms. For some, it can act as the perfect appetizer for The Matrix Reloaded.