One of the best Comicfilms ever

Rating: 10/10 (10 May 2003)

XMen 2 came to cinema in a very difficult time. Therefore I just saw the trailers for the upcoming bluckbusters "Matrix Reloaded", "Terminator 3" and "the Hulk" right before X2 in the cinema, wich made it kind of difficult for X2 to beat just those trailers. Another part that made it difficult is the fact that comicfilms - except Burtons Masterpiece "Batman" and Raimis smart and entertaining hit "Spiderman" - are mostly pretty average films that provide only small parts of intelligent entertainment.

But I can say with good conscience, that X2 not only masters this task, but also raises the bar for exactly those blockbusters immensly!

Director Bryan Singer has really made a character driven actionfilm, and these don't often succeed, but X2 is definately one of those that did.
So X2 offers lots of great action (even only the opening sequence with nightcrawler is more than awesome) and never loses it's characters, wich is an even more remarkable because there are plenty of characters in X2 that all want to share their bits and not just want to be a stereotype in the background.
So the adventure of Professor X, Wolverine, Cyclops, Storm, Dr Jean Grey, Iceman, Nightcrawler and Rogue fighting side a side with Magneto, Mystique and Pyro against the evil general Stryker and his men, is pure entertainment and pure fun. The World of the XMen comes alive, and this for more than 2 hours.

Next to the tremendous achievement of director Bryan Singer and the fantastic work of several SFX houses (just read the end credits for how many there were) this is mostly due to a great cast!
So Patrick Stewart as Professor X and Ian McKellen as Magneto give a great performance. Two actors with a simply breathtaking screen-presence. And in a time of Star Trek and Lord of the Rings the conflict will - at least in the heads of many viewers - be extended to Captain Jean-Luc Picard versus Gandalf the Grey. What more can you want?
A very good choice again was Hugh Jackman for the part of Wolverine, a very rough, animal and yet very human character who comes to believable life thanks to Jackmans performance.
Another pearl is Bryan Cox playing William Stryker, a man who hates every mutant, allthough or most probably just because his own son is one of them.

As a result I personally can say that X2 definately belongs in my all time best list. X-Men 2 is cinema as it should be: fast, cool, beautiful and intelligent.