X2: X-Men United

Even though my friend John is apparently cursing him for giving him my cold on Sunday (although it sounds much worse than mine was, so maybe it wasn't the same thing), I know he's been waiting patiently for my review of X2: X-Men United, which we saw with Debbi a couple of weeks ago.

In this film, we return to Professor Charles Xavier's (Patrick Stewart) School for Gifted Children, where young mutants learn to use their powers and integrate into society. Except, of course, for Wolverine (Hugh Jackman), who travels to a remote location looking for clues to his past. And the blue teleporting mutant Nightcrawler (Alan Cumming), who attempts to assassinate the President and is barely stopped. Or, for that matter, Mystique (Rebecca Romijn-Stamos), who is trying to figure out how to locate and spring her boss, the megalomaniacal Magneto (Ian McKellan, who, as my Dad tells me a Boston Globe columnist put it, has the mutant power to chew scenery), from his plastic prison.

The humans aren't all happy about the mutants, either, as William Stryker (Brian Cox) plans to use Xavier's machine Cerebro to destroy them all from his hidden refuge, to which end he captures Xavier in a raid on the school. This sets the ball in motion as the rest of the X-Men contrive to escape from the authorities, stop Stryker, and rescue the Professor.

Despite the complex plot (and fairly stupid title), X2 is a far more successful film than its predecessor, on several counts.

It portrays a large number of mutants, but gives them all more depth than many characters in the first film had. While Wolverine again steals the show, Nightcrawler, Jean Grey (Famke Janssen), Iceman (Shawn Ashmore), Rogue (Anna Paquin), Magneto and Pyro (Aaron Stanford, who just about matches Jackman for intensity) all come away well. Notably absent from this list are Cyclops (James Marsden) and Storm (Halle Berry), who are both ciphers at best. Cyclops' weakness is particularly lamentable, as his head-to-head confrontations with Wolverine were among the highlights of the comic book series.

Director Bryan Singer has a better feel for filming fight scenes, and in particular the depiction of Nightcrawler's attack on the White House - teleporting and all - is brilliantly done. And Wolverine's fight with Stryker's unnamed henchwoman (Kelly Hu) is also quite good (and with a gripping - if somewhat obvious - conclusion). There is a very high body count in the film, but there's not much gore. It's all "clean" death.

The film's plot seems generally less contrived than the first one, being a straightforward "kill 'em all" scenario rather than the "turn 'em all into mutants" approach of the first, and the pacing feels far less muddled. There's a good "never trust the bad guy, even when you're allied with him" twist. The whole thing even ends on a minor cliffhanger (somewhat less minor for fans of the comics, who can see what's coming).

The film does have some problems. For instance, Xavier's capture feels tiresome. The greatest mutant mind on the planet, captured again? Sigh. And the use of Cerebro in Stryker's plans feels basically silly - too much power with too fine-grained a control to feel plausible. And thematically the film still has the "hit you over the head with a sledgehammer" feel to its "mutants as persecuted minority" schtick. (The comics were usually best when they downplayed this angle; the X-Men often were just so darned destructive in their battles that the general public never accepted them.)

All-in-all, though, it was quite enjoyable. In particular, I'd be up for a whole film of just Nightcrawler (especially if they played up his swashbuckling nature and downplayed his religion). It seems certain there will be an X3. Bring it on!