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X2:
X-Men United
Bryan Singer, USA, 2003
Rating: 4.1
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Posted: May 4,
2003
By
Kevin Forest Moreau
Spider-Man.
Daredevil. The Batman films.
Spawn. Blade. Love it or hate it,
the parade of big-budget films based on superhero comic book properties,
stretching back all the way to 1978's Richard Donner-directed Superman,
has been -- let's face it -- a mixed bag. The reasons for this are as varied
as the films themselves: Flimsy scripts; technological limitations; poor
judgment in the hiring of directors and actors (Batman and Robin,
anyone? Steel? 'Nuff said.) And with this summer's upcoming Hulk
and
League of Extraordinary Gentlemen presaging a glut of four-color
features extending well into 2004, fans can be forgiven for a creeping
"quality vs. quantity" skepticism: It's hard to escape the notion that venal
Hollywood is cashing in, churning out an overabundance of similar features
not seen since the halcyon days of adult/child body-switching films (Vice
Versa, etc) of the 1980s.
That skepticism is abated somewhat by Bryan Singer's X2: X-Men United,
the roller-coaster sequel to 2000's long-awaited X-Men screen debut:
It's far and away the most effortlessly engrossing superhero adaptation in
years. It's also perhaps the single most authentic film of its type to date
in its evocation of the comic book experience. In its look and feel, its
attention to both character interaction and sensory-overload spectacle,
X2 is the closest Hollywood has yet come to a graphic novel made flesh.
The backstory, familiar to pocket-protector brigades the world over:
Mutants, a random offshoot of humanity blessed (or cursed, depending on your
point of view) with extra-normal abilities, are looked upon with a mixture
of suspicion, fear and hatred by a human race wary of suffering the same
fate that Cro-Magnon Man brought to the Neanderthals: evolutionary
extinction. Professor Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart), one of the world's
foremost mutant minds, has established a School for Gifted Youngsters, a
safe haven wherein mutants young and old can learn to control, and adapt to,
their newfound powers. The school is also the home base for the X-Men,
Xavier's elite cadre of super-powered mutants whose purpose is to train the
younger charges and to combat threats to Xavier's Martin Luther King-like
vision of a world in which humans and mutants peacefully co-exist. Those
threats are both external (humans bent on controlling or wiping out the
mutant population) and internal, the latter represented by mutant mastermind
Magneto (Ian McKellen), the Malcolm X yang to Xavier's yin, a survivor of
the Holocaust determined that his species prevail against its human
aggressors by any means necessary.
As X2 begins, a few weeks after the end of its predecessor, Magneto,
whose plan to mutate a large portion of New York was foiled by the X-Men in
the first film, sits in a plastic prison designed specifically to thwart his
power over all things metallic. Meanwhile, the very war between man and
mutant that Magneto has so often to stage a preemptive strike against is
underway.
Kurt Wagner, a.k.a. Nightcrawler (Alan Cumming) -- a blue-skinned,
demonic-looking mutant with a prehensile tail and the ability to teleport in
a flash of brimstone -- stages a one-mutant assault on the White House in an
attempt to assassinate the President. In no time, military scientist William
Stryker (Bryan Cox) has leveraged this opportunity into a license to storm
Xavier's school (which he sees as a training ground for mutant terrorists)
in one of the film's best sequences. Soon, Xavier himself has been captured,
whisked away to a remote, secretive military installation where Stryker has
built a replica of Cerebro, the machine Xavier uses to find new mutants by
connecting telepathically with all of the minds on the planet. Meanwhile,
the beautiful shape-shifting mutant Mystique (Rebecca Romijn-Stamos) helps
Magneto escape his prison, and soon the X-Men have formed an uneasy alliance
with the two felons in attempt to free Xavier and foil Stryker's plan, which
involves using the new Cerebro to kill all of the mutants on earth.
Singer has been quoted as describing X2 as his The Empire Strikes
Back, and it's a fitting analogy. X2 wastes little time on
backstory, thrusting its audience right into the action, and the risk pays
off. In the process, it moves beyond the wooden, perfunctory pacing of the
first film, and in its confident expansion of its themes, characters and
plot, it builds from the rickety foundation of X-Men a breathing,
full-fledged mythology. What's more, bravura action sequences (Nightcrawler's
White House assault is nothing short of spectacular) are complemented by an
unexpected and wholly welcome emphasis on character development. Brooding
Wolverine (Hugh Jackman, the film's stoic center) slowly fills in the
missing puzzle-pieces of his forgotten past, one which involves Stryker;
Rogue (Anna Paquin), who absorbs the powers (and life energies) of anyone
she touches, develops a tender young romance with Bobby Drake, a.k.a. Iceman
(Shawn Ashmore), who "comes out" to his parents in one of the film's
funniest moments ("Have you tried not being a mutant?" his sweetly
intolerant mother asks); Pyro (Tadpole's
Aaron Stanford) feels the pull of Xavier's and Magneto's competing
philosophies; even Stryker's somewhat cardboard motivation is ably handled.
These grace notes help to compensate for X2's weak spots. The
romantic triangle between Wolverine, the powerful telepath/telekinetic Jean
Grey (Famke Janssen) and the staid Cyclops (James Marsden) provides little
of the hoped-for sparks; Marsden is once again given almost nothing to do
except smolder and shoot optic blasts from his eyes. Oscar-winner Halle
Berry, as weather witch Storm, is also again underused (Janssen at least
gets a too-subtle subplot revolving around her increasingly overwhelming
abilities). And Stewart, whose stentorian Xavier is supposed to be the
group's visionary leader, is stuck with a role far more reactive than
active. Likewise, Stryker's assistant Deathstrike (Kelly Hu), whose claws
and healing factor are a match for Wolverine's, is little more than a cypher.
Cumming does a credible job as the German-born Nightcrawler, although his
presence is a plot hole the film never quite papers over (having been
manipulated by Stryker into attacking the White House, he's then left to his
own devices rather than imprisoned in case he's needed again). And the
film's final third drags a bit, as the race to chase down all its dangling
subplots saps the energy from the main plot involving Xavier and Cerebro
(which isn't the most action scene-friendly scenario to begin with).
Still, X2 does many things right, its surging momentum and dramatic
tension girding its themes of acceptance and tolerance, so dear to the
hearts of its crucial, social-outcast fan base. It's a fitting extension of
the comic franchise, a tribute to the legacy of longtime X-Men writer
Chris Claremont (from whose graphic novel God Loves, Man Kills the
character of Stryker is adapted). While its exposition-heavy dialogue may
deter some newcomers, its breathless pace, expertly handled action sequences
and attention to thematic detail should appeal to every film-goer's
misunderstood mutant side.
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