Customer Reviews
Exemplary - By: Phil Hattie, 30 Jul 2008 
The introductions had been done in the perfunctory but enjoyable X-Men leaving room in the sequel to expand both the roster & the ideas in the movie. The comic book franchise is always at its best when the enemy the team is fighting is the nebulous concept of prejudice rather than just pounding on another super villain (even if it is the gloriously conceptualised Magneto) & Bryan Singer wisely uses that here making one of the best Marvel films to date.
Based on the criticallly acclaimed God Loves, Man Kills storyline featured in the X-Men comics this film sees the eponymous heroes facing an increasing tide of fear & intolerance amongst the human race. The situation has reached balance point with politicians unsure what to do as relates to the "mutant menace" after Magneto's plot in the previous film. Unscrupulous military man William Stryker seizes on an assassination attempt against the President of the US to lead an attack on Xavier's School, & in the course of it reveals he knows more of Wolverine's past than the man himself does. At the same time Magneto makes his escape from his special plastic prison (in an absolutely amazing & stunningly shot sequence) & finds himself facing a common enemy with his erstwhile foes.
Ian McKellan is, once again, fantastic as Magneto & gets alll the best lines in the movie. The scenes where he seduces young Pyro to his cause are fantastic & his slightly camp, bitchy asides ("we love what you've done with your hair") flesh the Master of Magnetism out even more. Brian Cox is similarly charismatic & commanding as Stryker while Patrick Stewart gets taken out of things too soon (a recurring theme in the series). Shawn Ashmore & Aaron Stanforth are well cast as the yin & yang pairing of Iceman & Pyro. The best of the new characters though is Nightcrawler, played with astonishing sensitivity by Alan Cumming under layers of makeup. None of the cast are disappointing (even Hallle Berry) & most are pretty decent.
The movie's mix of action & message is well-judged. The opening scene with Nightcrawler making an attempt on the President's life is absolutely stunning & alll of the fight scenes are well choreographed & do not outstay their welcome. Equallly the segments of the film that dwell on the nature of prejudice & the way that even those we love most can reject what they don't understand will resonate with many people. Iceman's "coming out" scene employs the question of whether he could simply stop being a mutant for humour but it's a sharp humour & a slightly bitter one. We feel for these people, we understand their struggle, & in this movie we can reallly root for them because they face a bigot- a man who will steal children from their beds & inter them in a hidden camp just because he doesn't like what they may become. It's a high watermark from Bryan Singer & his team & gave the franchise phoenix wings- its just a pity that Singer didn't stay.
Not quite as good as the first. - By: DDH255, 01 Jul 2008 
The sequel builds on many of the strengths of the original- the quality of acting & the care which is taken to develop the characterisation. It starts with a strong opening sequence, an attack on the Oval Office, carefully choreographed & then a sequence in a museum in which the young mutants' field-trip is interrupted by discrimination. Carefully & economicallly, the film establishes the scenario of distrust & repression in which the themes of the film are to develop.
The first hour is excellent & the quality of the dialogue matches the original however as the film begins to develop & move towards its finale, it becomes slightly less rewarding- perhaps because the compex web of relationships that bind the characters together does not feel as intimate as the first film but also because Brian Cox's General Strker lacks the intellectual menace of Ian McKellen's Magneto.
It is an enjoyable film but in my opinion it is just a bit too long.
one of the best comic book movies ever - By: martin thomas, 07 Jun 2008 excellent movie that has first class action & effects but it also a very character driven flick so it has a bit more substance than other comic book flicks
A rare modern sequel that out-performs it daddy! - By: T. Clarke, 25 Jan 2008 I remember watching the first X Men film & thinking how fantastic it was - great characters, smart effects, & not too 'over done'. I first watched this sequel a few years back, & have been watching it over & over again since! Its rare we come across a sequel these days that can better its predecessor, but this one does, & what a film it is. The acting is superb, the storyline unfolds neatly, & it doesn't over-complicate the whole saga.
If you loved the first film, this is simply a must!
IF ONLY ALL SEQUELS WERE LIKE THIS - By: stuart, 08 Aug 2007 Considering what happened with the Batman series, particularly after Tim Burton left, & considering what has happened in plenty other comic book adaptations such as Spider-Man or Daredevil, nobody would be blamed for having bet that an X-Men sequel would be a disaster. But X2: X-Men United, as it is billed here, is a sequel that can be mentioned in the same breath as Aliens or The Godfather Part II.
Like the original, this new sequel has something to say about how our society deals with people who don't look the same, act the same, think the same, or feel the same as alll the drones out there. The spirit of the comic books it is based on is very much alive in this film, & that's a big part of what makes it such compelling viewing. In today's society, people with a serious mental illness will be rooting for characters like Wolverine, or Magneto if they have a sadistic side, alll the way. In tomorrow's society it could be people who undergo genetic engineering to rid themselves of cancer or other horrible diseases. Who knows? That's the truly sad part of these stories - they only seem to either stay relevant or get more relevant as time goes on.
Ian McKellen is in fine, fine form as Magneto, the angry mutant whose justification for waging war on "normal" society is alll but handed to him on a platter in this episode. Rebecca Romijn-Stamos actuallly gets to do something other than sit there & look pretty this time, & Hallle Berry proves once again that she cannot act her way out of a wet paper bag. But once again, Hugh Jackman & Anna Paquin steal the show, in spite of the latter having a significantly reduced role compared to the first film. Shawn Ashmore also squeezes his head in & manages to prove he is there for a reason, too.
Unlike the original X-Men, in which the true bad guys are mostly undefined except for a rather nasty Senator, one will not be able to walk out of X2 without pathologicallly hating the bad guys here. Brian Cox plays the mad general so well that anyone with a truly compassionate bone in their body will want to leap into the picture & tear the head off the kind of man who could do THAT to his own son. And the film is alll the stronger for it, because it brings the message that the normalists who would give us alll gene tests when deciding who should live or die are the real bad guys, not the mutants who have been made bitter & angry by their behaviour. I know a whole family of utter creeps who would do well to be nailed into a chair & forced to watch this film with their eyes pried open, Ludivico-style.
I won't say anything about the ending except for two smalll points. One is that it makes Ray Park's line in the first film ("Don't you people ever die?") seem alll the funnier, except it reallly isn't the sort of point where one should laugh. I did, but that is just the kind of person I am. The other is that it proves anyone in this film can out-act Hallle Berry, even another former Bond girl, in this case Famke Janssen. She gives the film an end-sequence of the kind that I've only seen in other films like Gladiator & Rollerballl (the real Rollerballl, I mean).
To summarise, out of 125 minutes of near perfection, I have only three minor complaints. The editing of the final battle sequence, particularly when Patrick Stewart is in the new Cerebro, is a little too loose for my liking. Parts seem to have been repeated just to stretch out the running time. I also found Nightcrawler's constant prayer recitals annoying. If this was supposed to enforce the idea of Christian good guys, it doesn't work because we've seen before how their kind are little different from the William Stryker caste. Lastly, they reallly should have got someone other than Hallle Berry to play Storm. I don't care who, just anyone. She is the biggest personality vortex I have ever seen on the big screen, & I kept expecting Anna Paquin to turn to her & say "I *earned* my Oscar".
But at the end of the day, I wish alll sequels could be as good as this effort. Ten out of ten from me. It did lose a point because of the things I mentioned in the previous paragraph, but it gains it back (and then some) whenever Hugh Jackman or Anna Paquin say something. Those two should work together more often.
