One of the best sequels to date!

Rating: 10/10 (3 May 2003)

The X-Men has always been my favorite comic book, without a doubt. Spider-man is probably in second place, but The X-Men take the cake. Ever since I heard a sequel was going into the works and Bryan Singer was still on board as director, I had faith that he would do the sequel justice...of course I couldn't help but have that looming fear that something would go wrong. In the end, the film was released and of course, I wasted no time in getting to the theater to see it on opening day.
After seeing the film, I can definitely say it's been a long time since I've come out of a movie theater as happy as I did for this film. The story was absolutely brilliant and was told in the perfect manner to keep you interested. ...And of course, there are plenty of new characters and action to keep the audience in awe as well.
Nightcrawler was a truly brilliant character to bring into the sequel of the film. Nightcrawler (Kurt Wagner) has always been one of favorite X-Men characters, perhaps even more than Wolverine...but that's up for debate. Teleportation has GOT to be one of the coolest and most interesting ideas for a mutant ability! I was incredibly stoked to see him brought to life on the big screen, Bryan Singer and Alan Cumming did a FANTASTIC job! Next to Wolverine, Colossus has also got to be one of my favorite characters. I can't even begin to express how happy I was to see him in the film...although not NEARLY enough was done with him when there was so much potential for his abilities in the film. Oh well, there's always X-Men 3 right? The other two new characters, Pyro (John Allerdyce) and Lady Deathstrike (Yuriko Oyama) were very well done as well, although not much of their character histories were explained...which is ok, there is only so much time in a film. The rest of the characters already had a firm basis from the previous film and were all executed extremely well in this sequel, my hat is off to Mr. Bryan Singer, "Keep up the good work!"
The entire cast was absolutely perfect for the film. Ian McKellan, Patrick Stewart, Hugh Jackman, Halle Berry, Famke Janssen, James Marsden, Rebecca Romijn-Stamos, Brian Cox, Alan Cumming, Bruce Davison, Anna Paquin, Kelly Hu, Aaron Stanford, Shawn Ashmore, and Daniel Cudmore all did incredible jobs with their roles and should be proud of their work, truly fantastic.
The story in this sequel is great. I love the idea of the good and the bad having an equal threat and being forced to work together in order to save them all. The chemistry and the relationship between Erik Lehnsherr (Magneto) and Professor Charles Xavier is so bizarre and interesting...and very thought provoking. There are so many interesting and well done relationships between characters in the film: Logan (Wolverine) - Scott Summers (Cyclops), Rogue - Bobby Drake (Iceman), Jean Grey - Scott Summers (Cyclops) and Jean Grey - Logan (Wolverine) to name a few. I love just watching them all interact with each other.
What it all boils down to is this, if you liked the first film, then you should definitely like this film. I'm not sure I could say I liked X2 better than the original, but I'd definitely feel comfortable saying it was just as good...and better in certain aspects (but not as a whole).
I would definitely recommend seeing this film in the theater or at least rent it when it's released, it's well worth your time. This film isn't all about super-heroes, action and fantasy, there is a lot more to it than just that and I hope you can see and appreciate that. I do hope that you enjoy the film as much as I do and thank you for reading my review, be sure to read my review for the first "X-Men".
-Chris
P.S. They better start crackin' on a X3 right away!
Also..here's some interesting trivia for ya. In the scene where Mystique is finding out where Magneto is being held she is scrolling through a bunch of names, the name above Lensherr, Erik (Magneto) is LeBeau, Remy...aka "Gambit"...nice little touch there, I didn't get a look at the other names there, but there might be more allusions there. Another cool thing is in the scene where the security guard is in the bar, there is a TV on in the background with a guy named Hank McCoy talking...Hank McCoy later becomes known as "Beast". Pretty cool huh...