March Marvel Madness: X2: X-MEN UNITED

Greetings, True Believers! Welcome to March Marvel Madness! Every day this month, I'll be looking back on a theatrically-released movie based on the characters of Marvel Comics. It's all to commemorate the April 4th release of the next Marvel film adventure, Captain America: The Winter Soldier.

Today, it's...

Picking up after the events of X-Men, X2 begins with a mutant attempting to assassinate the President of the United States, which prompts insane military leader, William Stryker (Brian Cox), to attack the X-Men mansion and kidnap Professor Charles Xavier (once again played by Patrick Stewart). The remaining X-Men, including Wolverine (Hugh Jackman), Storm (Halle Berry), Cyclops (James Marsden), and Jean Grey (Famke Janssen), form a reluctant alliance with their sworn enemy, Magneto (Ian McKellen), in an effort to rescue the beloved Professor and save mutant and human kind.

Remember when Bryan Singer said he was going "Wrath of Khan" on the sequel to his 2006 film Superman Returns? Well, we never did get to see that, but it didn't matter, because he already Empire Strikes Back'd the shit out of X-Men with X2! X-Men United is a textbook example of using what was great about the previous film to make a more inspired follow-up. Drawing inspiration from the 1982 graphic novel, God Loves, Man Kills, Singer expands on the previous film's themes of tolerance and understanding by raising the stakes in the story with the addition of a greater adversary. The enthusiasm Singer has for this film is evident in the exciting editing, stronger production design, and a greatly-improved musical score (by frequent collaborator, John Ottman).

The first X-Men brought together a- for the most part- remarkable group of actors who excelled at bringing these classic characters to life. Just like The Empire Strikes Back, X2's returning players got another chance to play, enhancing their already memorable performances while strengthening the unit. This movie even has it's own Lando Calrissian in the form of Alan Cummings's Nightcrawler. Not only a visually eye-popping character, but Cummings's turn as the fan-favorite mutant is nothing short of astonishing.

X2 does fall just a bit short of Empire perfection. Thank you, Halle Berry. As if your sub-par effort in the first movie wasn't bad enough, you completely gave up on Storm in this one. Probably because you were too busy kissing your Oscar for Monster's Ball between takes to really give a shit. Storm is a ground-breaking character in comics- and pop culture- and she deserves better.

Watching X2: X-Men United now is just as thrilling as it was when I first experienced it in theaters. Time- and a lazy movie star- has done absolutely nothing to diminish the what is not only Marvel's first great sequel, but also one of their finest big-screen achievements.

- JDO

X2: X-Men United
4 1/2 out of 5 Cap Shields