Blows the first one out of the water

Rating: 8/10 (2 May 2003)

The first X-MEN was, I felt, a very successful outing. But it lacked the momentous feel and captivating energy of, for example, SPIDER-MAN--which captured perfectly everything that made the comics so wonderful. X-MEN was a skillful adaptation from a difficult medium with some great performances from 2 great actors, but I wouldn't exactly term it "great."
X2 is great. Better than the first, better, even, than SPIDER-MAN. Not just by a little, but by a lot.
From the opening sequence (I'm not gonna ruin it), it's pretty apparent that we're in for something more. Bryan Singer brings his stylistic influence to bear on this film a lot more than in the original--and the results are appreciated. His little touches of cinematic deftness make one appreciate the value of having a great director even on a blockbuster action project like this.
Another improvement is the length--no joke. X2 is able to tell a much deeper, and, well, BIGGER story than the first because it's got over 2 hours to do it in. The extra time allows for more and better action sequences (MUCH better; am I the only one who was a little underwhelmed by the Wolverine/Mystique sequences from the first movie?), sure, but perhaps more importantly it allows for more character. Not just character development, character INTERACTION--something the original needed more of. Wolverine and Iceman in the kitchen, for instance, is a great example of the kind of hanging-out-at-the-X-Mansion scenes that helped give the comic book such depth and breadth.
SPIDER-MAN was great because it focused not as much on recreating exactly the classic STORY of the comics, but on recreating the things that made that story so great in the first place. X-MEN did this to an extent, but not as well. X2 does it better than both of them, and that's why it's a better film than both of them.