A sequel shockingly better than the original - X2: X-Men United Reviews

The sequel which exceeds its immediate predecessor is the least common of movie beasts, a rara avis to be treasured. Those few examples that leap to mind--Godfather II, The Empire Strikes Back, Indiana Jones and the Quest for the Holy Grail--occupy treasured places in the pantheon and are part of integrally related trilogies. Even the archetypical Rocky took a bevy of sequels to top the original. X-2: X-Men United manages to craft a genuinely good film out of thoroughly inferior materials, a testament to everyone on the project. Perhaps the most apt of those inevitable comparisons comes to George Lucas in the Star Wars trilogy, whose latter two offerings benefitted tremendously from the infusion of funds and directorial ambit the commercial success of the first made possible. If only from the 134-minute running time and orgy of obviously expensive visual effects, it is clear that X2 is of the same provenance. Director Bryan Singer has a spectacular grasp of pacing and character development, skills amply on evidence in his two previous major commercial productions (not including the original X-Men in 2000), The Usual Suspects (1995) and Apt Pupil (1998). The film develops slowly, taking full advantage of its long running time, reintroducing the characters from the first film. Xavier's idyllic School for Gifted Youngsters in Westchester is given plenty of screentime, juxtaposed against a mindbloring opening sequence in the White House introducing the new mutant in the mix, Nightcrawler (Alan Cumming, in a lot of makeup). The eclectic mix from the original film is all back: Wolverine (Hugh Jackman), Storm (Halle Berry), Jean Grey (Famke Jannsen), Cyclops (James Marsden), Rogue (Anna Paquin), Mystique (Rebecca Romjin-Stamos). Though an amply talented cast, they are an ensemble dwarfed in some ways by their respective headmen, Professor Xavier (Patrick Stewart) and Magneto (Ian McKellen). The two powerful mutants squared off in the first film and Magneto lost--temporarily. In the new installment, as the title suggests, they'll be working together against a common threat: a black-ops military man William Stryker (Brian Cox) so profoundly hateful of mutants that he has hatched an elaborate plan to kill them all. The collaboration is more rewarding than the first film's struggle. Xavier is captured by Stryker early in the film, and set against his own personal demons, leaving Magneto to lead the X-Men. His inherent self-possession befits a true dramatic antivillain, and can be favorably compared to the Darth Vader of Lucas' films, a man of deep dignity who has gone over to the dark side. His escape from the "plastic prison" (Magneto's power is to move metal telekinetically) in which the military had kept him is a cinematic spectacle, set to regal pace and instrumentation. Ian McKellen is the dramatic force of the film, though the truest force comes from elsewhere. The gravity of the film comes from the realization of the darker theme running through the first. There were a few excellent scenes between Stewart and McKellen in the first film differing on how to combat the bigotry rampant in society against mutants. The far-reaching implications of that social question were given short shrift in X-Men, but ample time in the second allows them to move along apace with the adventure. When Iceman (Shawn Ashmore), a teenaged mutant, returns home to his family after fleeing his beseiged school, his family is sweetly but vividly apalled. "Can't you try... not being a mutant?" asks his Norman Rockwell mother. He is turned into the police by his own brother. Later, the 'evil' mutant doppleganger Mystique is asked why she doesn't simply adopt human form all the time and escape discrimination, her answer is terse: "Because I shouldn't have to." This is reparte with gravitas. Of course, this is an action movie, not a social drama piece. The film is peppered with allusions to the underlying social issues, but only in a handful of scenes are they given the spotlight. Thus Singer carefully keeps the tone lighter, making the deeper questions a part of his environment rather than the driving force of the movie. Regular infusions of visual spectacles keeps the audience from morosing too deeply about the poor spot in which the mutants find themselves. Ostensibly, the movie is "about" the end of the story arc concerning Wolverine begun in the first movie. Wolverine was a man without a memory, a vagabond. The first film was about his redemption under the skillful mollities of Professor Xavier, but his past remained a question mark. In this film, Stryker's plot against mutants and his own past collide and he finds that he must confront the past in order to save Xavier and all mutants from calamity. The story is pleasantly pat, a plot which must be taken with suspension of disbelief but is never a distraction; it moves along smoothly, relying upon the action sequences and deeper moments to keep the audience interested--exactly what the plot of an action movie should strive after. Singer's detailed characterizations keep the occasionally silly characters from becoming farce. Stryker, though a comic book villain, is driven by clearly emoted internal pain, though Cox's performance is somewhat more fervid than necessary. Jackman's laconic Wolverine continues to work well as a proxy protagonist. His attention to detail is such that even the one-shot villainess's death is treated with a certain bittersweet care, despite her complete lack of development. The ensemble cast walks well the line between palpable mediocre performance and distractingly obtrusive dazzle, realizing the gist of the movie is to be found in the world of spectacle and social tension it has wrought. Singer has been singularly underutilized as a director of excellent credentials. The Usual Suspects was not a fluke of circumstance, but the product of a deft hand. He was assuredly not given a chance to practice his art fully in the original X-Men, but his talent is on showcase here, bringing together a melange of elements to create a deeply satisfying movie. By the end, even the most tepid watcher of action films must find himself wanting to see what will happen in the next installment. Singer is already working on X-Men 3, and in his hands, it promises to build further on the successes of the first two films to create a franchise which will last far beyond his direction (though later films will no doubt duffer for lack of it.) X-2 is an action movie that has no reason to be anything more than a summer blockbuster but manages to achieve much more.