X Men 2: our review

Starring: Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellan, Halle Berry, Hugh Jackman, Anna Paquin, Brian Cox, Alan Cumming

Directed by: Bryan Singer

Running time: 135 minutes

Cert: 12A

Release date: 1 May 2003

What's the story?


The film's premise is that the next stage of human evolution has resulted in mutants: men and women gifted with strange and wonderous powers. Picking up where the original film left off, the sequel finds the heroic mutants who make up the X-Men still sworn to protect both mutants and normal humans, most of whom fear and mistrust them. In order to combat the nefarious plans of the manipulative former army commander William Stryker (Brian Cox), the X-Men must team up with their former arch-enemy, Magneto (Sir Ian McKellan), and some new allies (including Alan Cumming's scene-stealing blue mutant Nightcrawler) in order to save both man and mutant-kind

What's it like?

Moreso than the previous X-Men film, X-Men 2 is packed from beginning to end with almost non-stop action - it's not bogged-down by all of the introductions and origins that occassionally threatened to stall its predecessor. But therein lies the problem - it assumes that everyone who goes to see the sequel will have also seen (and clearly remember) the first film. Anyone who hasn't will probably get a bit lost, especially as this is an ensemble piece, featuring no fewer than a dozen main characters. So if the names "Cyclops", "Storm", "Wolverine", "Mystique", "Rogue", "Professor X" or "Magneto" don't sound familiar to you, it may take you a while to catch up.

However, if you enjoyed the first film, then you'll be happy to know that the sequel is even better, from the special effects to the script itself. Because it is an ensemble piece (there aren't even any cast credits until the film is over), every character gets an opportunity to shine, and with a heavyweight cast that features Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellan, Halle Berry, Hugh Jackman , Anna Paquin, Brian Cox and Alan Cumming, amongst many others, that can only be a good thing.

Though the film is a bit long at 135 minutes, director Bryan Singer manages to keep the pace up for the duration of the movie. After the phenomenal worldwide success of the first X-Men film, it would appear that the studio's purse-strings have been loosened a bit. The action sequences and special effects are bigger and better than before. There's a brilliant sequence of an aerial dogfight involving tornadoes (the weather phenomena, not the jet planes) and mutants-vs-missiles that will have audiences on the edge of their seats.

Conclusion

Fans of the first X-Men film will find this sequel bigger and better than its predecessor. But if the first film failed to win you over, you could find X-Men 2 a bit baffling.

Marks out of 10: 8.5 if you've seen the first film, 5 if you haven't.