Rating: 
Summary: Everything the first movie was, and MORE!
Review: The first X-Men movie was incredible. It was a superhero blockbuster that had incredible special effects, but also had an incredible plot. Like many, I was skeptical with the sequel. More often than not, sequels of great movies end up being terrible. So imagine my susprise when I went and saw this movie and I enjoyed it more than the first movie! The great part of X2 is that the characters are already introduced, so you don't have to waste time telling who everybody is, you can just get straight to the action. As far as the DVD goes, the picture is stunning and the DTS audio will literally shake your house. It also has a plentiful selection of extras. I highly reccomend this DVD to a fan of superhero movies or action movies.
Rating: 
Summary: Better X-Men than X-Men I
Review: Far better effects, far more depth. A little darker than #1 but still has many fun moments. I wish they'd do more with Iceman than let him toss snowballs and ice, like riding ice bridges the way he does in the Marvel books.
Rating: 
Summary: Am I crazy?
Review: Am I crazy to think that the first movie was much better? X2 was entertaining, but got somewhat predictable. Good for an evening's entertainment, but I was disappointed.
Rating:
Summary: Watch the first for intros, watch this for the action
Review: Once more, Bryan Singer, the director of X-Men brings along a spectacular sequel, which possibly promises more & more. Once you've seen the first, you will definitely want to see the second, especially since you get to see even more of the rather lovely Hugh Jackman.All the old characters are brought back to fight another day, and we also get introduced to some new characters - some of the kids from the school get a bigger role, including Rogue's boyfriend, who will make sure that your drink is always 'ice' cold. Another great new character is "Nightcrawler", played brilliantly by fellow Scot, Alan Cumming, who is almost as bad as Mystique, having at one point to be in make-up for 10 hours! (He appears topless in one scene, so that adds on the extra hours) All the now well known characters appear at the start, but they don't all appear at the end. Now, I wonder what that could mean? I was quite shocked at the apparent death of this particular popular character, as it seemed totally unnecessary, but never mind. Hugh Jackman is terrific once more as Wolverine, although he meets the female version of him, resulting in some rather painful looking scenes. There are also a few glimpses into his past, and it gets revealed about how he came to be as he is. Anna Paquin appears, and gets a quite good role, although the originally 'white' streaks in her hair seem to have turned blonde between films! Her relationship with her 'ice cool' boyfriend, briefly introduced during the previous film, develops, although not by much, judging by the effect she has on people! In this film, the humans are the baddies, and the renegade mutants join with the good guys to fight the threat. This results in some spectacular action scenes with explosive special effects. There are a huge amount of extras on the two disc dvd version, covering almost everything you could possibly want to know about the making of this film, from pre-production to post-production, including the special make-up effects used on Nightcrawler and Mystique. The four-disc special edition DVD containing both films and stacks of extras is highly recommended and well-worth the purchase price.
Rating:
Summary: BETTER THAN THE ORIGINAL
Review: Actually give this one 4 1/2 stars. Much closer to the spirit of the comics than the first movie. General Stryker hates mutants even though his son is one. He has a beef with Professor X and his school and begins his hunt against the mutants. Not only that, but Stryker knows Wolverine from the past and while not going into detail, it's clear he was the one who gave Wolverine is adamantite claws and bone augmentation as a weapon. Again, staying somewhat true to his Weapon X origins. Several new X-men are along for the ride, most notably the spectacular Nightcrawler who has a fantastic sequence where he teleports through the Whitehouse taking out guards in order to kill the president. We also see Bobby Drake as Iceman, Pyro, and a short cameo with the armor skinned Colossus as a student in the school. Also back is Ian McKellan as Magneto and Rebecca Romijn Stamos as Mystique,who joins forces with the X-men to fight Stryker and his troops. Much better story than the first movie and more exciting. Wolverine, Iceman, and Nightcrawler get the bulk of the character development at the expense of Cyclops and Rogue who have rather minimal roles in the movie. The DVD is loaded with many extras and multiple commentaries. One of the best DVDs of 2003.
Rating:
Summary: see it
Review: this is one of the best hero movies ever made. watch it and then watch it again. its smart its witty and the characters are very likable good action make this a great super hero movie see and own it
Rating:
Summary: An oddly rewatchable film...
Review: Having followed the X-Men thru the 70's and 80's, I had to see this movie sometime. I got it on DVD recently, and despite being baffled by the multitude of scenes filled with hollow writing, and basic film and character flaws, it is SO enjoyable to watch a dozen times or more because of the strength of the film, action and characters. This might be one of the few non-turkey films that is technically flawed in story and storytelling, but just DARN enjoyable to see again and again. The designs, acting, colors and movement are so enticing. On the negative tho, let me present a few notes... First, the entire plot for the film is faulty. It isn't devastatingly faulty because it plays in forward motion, but falls apart as you back up. Basically, Stryker made this alternate Cerebro to kill all mutants...why did he have to get Nightcrawler to attack the president? Why did he need to invade the Mansion?? He could have just said 'Its complete, lets get Xavier and call it a day.' HOW did Stryker get a hold of Kurt Wagner?! Its just a mess of implausible, less then pragmatic reasoning. They wrote the White House scenes only to make symmetrical 'book ends' for the writing - president's office scenes of error and correction. Over all, a lot of scenes had nothing more behind them then what they were. In terms of writing, this is death, and it made the movie tedious to me. What this means is that there was no crafty subtext, subreason, sub anything to most scenes. A lot of scequences were exactly what they were, sometimes merely injected as ways to explain how the world works, but not how the story works. Examples - Bobby Drake's house, the President's house, the fight in the Adamantium room, the plane fight. Much footwork! So many scenes/sequences were so poorly thought out. Nightcrawler grabs Rogue from outside of a moving plane and bamfs back in...yet has trouble bamfing through a 1 foot door at the end. They layered up that drama all wrong, tho the Nightcrawler/Storm faith vs. eyes stuff was nice. The writers should have made the Kurt/Ororo sequence some gradiose, tricky maneuver of multiple bamfs. Why did they go to Bobby Drakes house?? Whats this about? Why'd the kid call the cops?? Horrid motivation all over this sequence. I hated all the footwork in the end. Kurt can teleport, so why wasn't he zapping people all over? Why was Rogue flying the jet?? Why is Styrker one moment under the jet doubled up in pain, then suddenly he's taking a nice little coffee break as Magneto approaches?? Why did Logan have to carry the kid? Why did they have to walk over to Stryker chained up? Why didn't they have Jean stop the water from getting them as they ran TO the plane instead of her stepping OUT of the plane??? Then, her skitish powers give out as the plane rises...she dies....simple. Instead, they write an 'apology' sequence, after, where Xavier mysteriously explains she 'made a choice'. She's a dummy, basically. Why they had Iceman in this show at all was a huge mystery, and why didn't he turn to ice when activating powers? Instead of Jean leaving the plane and dying in the water, Iceman should have frozen the water so they could fly out. Simple. Why didn't the film creatives think of this? Even a cheap Rogue, 'oops I knocked him out with a victory kiss,' would have been fine and then set up inner conflict in Rogue, who let Jean die, for the next film. I assume Bobby Drake was only here to provide the obligatory, Hollywood LOVE STORY deemed necessary to any high budget movie. This film was really about walking, not about the trials and tribulations of super powered weirdos. Lastly, the main characters went OUT of character so often. Basically, Wolverine and Scott Summers. These two are the primary engine of conflict within the X-men, and should be very carefully portrayed. Wolverine should be a gruff jerk, a real spikey character who is mostly self centered and motivated as much for his own reasons as for his team. While not a bad guy, he is a dangerous person, and not someone anyone would call pleasant. Scott Summers is the nice white boy who sees himself as, and is granted, the lead of the team. He gives commands, he organizes, he uses logic and strategy, and sums up situations. Scott isn't very pleasant either, because he puts up walls between himself and everyone else, aside from the Professor and Jean; both whom he loves dearly for different reasons. His whole motive and personality was never well established. The kind of pedastal he puts the prof. on isn't shown properly, nor the pressures of his walls making him NEED Jean as a buffer for his emotional burdens from holding together a group of oddball elements in dedication to his idol/father figure, professor X. Wolverine changes personality within every scene as he goes from 'nice guy around the house' to 'gruff baddie' for no real reason. Wolverine should never say 'Thanks', 'Hows it going?' or 'Hey kiddo'....too nice. He is an aggressive character that is always in the way, brutish and demanding, as well as rudely unappreciative in most situations. There. I liked a lot of the effects work! It is a very rewatchable film for me. I saw it 12 times so far (most times playing in the background). While the basic ideas are fun, it is fairly hollow. The charm comes from the use of the powers and character interactions at the best of times. Some writing is really nicely thought out, but overall it feels like a script and idea put through a paper shredder and then taped together to make work.
Rating:
Summary: One of the better comic book movie to come out in recent yea
Review: X2 is a fine example of what a great sequel should be. A movie that takes the best of the original, and not only improves it but adds another dynamic of greatness with to it Huge Jackman, Patrick Stewart, and Ian Mckelen are all great in this movie as they were in the last, and Brain Cox brings a great menace to the table as a government agent determine to kill every mutant on the face of the earth. Follow ups don't get better than this, and I rank it right up there with Empire Strikes Back as one of the best sequels ever made.
Rating:
Summary: Ahhh...2nd time around is a charm
Review: The 1st X-Men was like the extended trailer as one of the actors put it, and I agree...but X2 blew me away! The plot is thicker, and the charactors more well developed. I'm truly looking forward to a 3rd X-Men movie!
Rating:
Summary: Excellent movie - but beware of DVD-ROMs
Review: I need not go into just how much I enjoyed this movie...because
I am having such trouble getting it to play.
I am using PowerDVD 4.0 XP to play X-Men 2 Widescreen Edition on an AOpen CD-RW/DVD-Rom drive. PowerDVD refuses to play the discs unless one juggles the scene selection a few times and gets lucky. What it does is tell me that my Nvidia GeForce FX 5600 video card has its TV-Out option turned on, and the X-Men 2 DVD will not play on my computer with that option turned on. Aside from the fascist nature of that restriction, I turned off the TV-out and multiple monitor functions for the video card...and the disc still gives me the same error. Windows Media Player v9 will not even recognise the disc, as it says the DVD is copyrighted to a degree where WMPv9 cannot even play it. So, if you want to watch this movie on your computer, heed my words: WAAAY too much copy-protection for this movie.
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