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X2 - X-Men United (Full Screen Edition)

X2 - X-Men United (Full Screen Edition)

List Price: $29.98
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Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Better than the first X-men
Review: I had heard that the second X-men movie was not as good as the first, but I just finished watching it and I thought it rocked! Not only did I really enjoy it, but I thought it was better than the first X-men movie. You won't be dissappointed!

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: X - ratted .....
Review: WELL? This one's kind of a combo of "Children of The Damned" {the original George Sanders version} meets "Inn of the 6th Happiness" ~ except for the grand budget and flashy visuals - this one's similar to "Peyton Place - meets David lynch" , err now that has been done - right?

No, just enjoy the ride - the rest is plain vanilla [artificial vanilla] that is ......

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Better than I thought it would be
Review: This movie was pretty good, but I wouldn't recommend watching it if you haven't seen the first one. I watched this one before I saw the first one, and I was so confused! But if you watch the first one first, then this movie is very good! suspenseful!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Brilliant
Review: I liked the first movie. It was heavy on the talking but I looked at it like it was an origin film. Once the seeds were planted, Singer could go anywhere he wanted. He did with X-2. From start to finish, this movie by far is one one of the top comic book movie of at least the last 5 years. Brilliant job with the addition of "new" mutants and even with a few shoutouts to other ones. Hank McCoy getting interviewed, Remy's name popping up on the computer screen, and even Archangel's wings. This was a good movie. One thing, I do wish that Lady Deathstrike had stuck around.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: average
Review: average hookum designed to appeal to a more mature audience. it is violent in parts and logan does his fair share of cutting up people with his claws so maybe not for kids under 12. i like the new character night crawler and it was good to see the bad guys helping the good guys for a change.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Better than average, but not by much.
Review: X2 is better than your average sci-fi film but is still firmly seated in that three star category. X1 had hardly any action and was mostly about setting up characters, a plot and a story. X2 has gone for more action with less character setups. It has also tried to put the bad mutants and good mutants together fighting against a new evil.

The opening scene with Nightcrawler assaulting the White House is well done and we learn more about Logan's past. However Singer does still get bogged down on introducing new characters and forming many various plot lines that all need to be covered in the space of two hours. This leaves X2 very disjointed in parts and it does not flow evenly or smoothly because of it. Many viewers may feel themselves attached to one story and forgetful of others that can sometimes play out as little more than just an excuse for screen action candy.

The truth be told, X2 is not a bad film and is watchable but does seem to bursting at the seems with too many characters trying to do their own thing.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: less cerebral, more conventional than the original
Review: "X2: X-Men United" is the widely admired sequel to "X-Men," one of the finest movies ever to be derived from a comic book series. The original film, in addition to being a superb piece of action cinema, dealt with such weighty issues as prejudice and alienation, showing how groups of people who are seen as "different" from the norm are often ostracized from and mistreated by society as a whole. By creating an entirely new set of people to serve as its outcasts - in this case, mutants endowed with extraordinary physical and mental powers - the film was able to strip the issue of bigotry down to its barest essentials and to make us see anew just how great a part "irrational fear of the unknown" plays in determining the ways we treat others. Quite an accomplishment for a film that was designed, essentially, to be little more than a commercial popcorn entertainment.

This second entry in the series, though it has generally received more positive reviews than the first one, seems less concerned with message and theme and more concerned with action and plotting. Part of the reason for this may lie in the fact that the initial film, because it was introducing both the characters and the concepts to the audience, was forced by necessity to deal with the theme in a more direct and comprehensive manner. Perhaps when it came to "X2," director Bryan Singer and writers Michael Dougherty, Dan Harris and David Hayter simply felt that the theme had been explored sufficiently in the first installment and that any further concentration on it would appear redundant. The problem is that, without that added intellectual and sociological dimension, "X2" starts to feel an awful lot like every other comic book action film - heavy on adventure and special effects and weak on character development and point. In fact, even with the added bonus of almost 30 extra minutes in this episode (it runs an overlong 134 minutes), many of the characters in the film do little but stand around and look helpless while a select few run around saving the day and getting all the valuable screen time.

There's a wonderful scene about halfway through the film in which a teenage mutant boy "comes out" to his genuinely astonished parents, informing them that their "ordinary, average" child (whom they had just considered "highly gifted") has been harboring a deep dark secret within himself, a revelation that no parent would ever want to hear and no child would ever want to have to make. The reaction of both stunned disbelief and reluctant acceptance ("We still love you no matter what you are") on the part of the boy's family speaks to anyone who has had to face a similar situation in his own life. "X2" could use more scenes like this one to help the audience connect better with both the characters and the events taking place on screen. And it was scenes like this one that made the original "X-Men" soar as a movie, for that film really seemed to be able to zero in on universal aspects of human nature. "X2" doesn't do nearly as impressive a job in this regard.

Every so often, "X2" feels as if it too is getting ready to expound on one of its potentially intriguing themes - as when the President of the United States has to decide whether to take draconian action against what he believes may be a "terrorist" organization among the mutants - only to have the concern fizzle in a welter of action movie clichés. After all, what could be more pertinent, timely or relevant to today's world than the threat of terrorism and the potential for civil rights abuses arising from the fear it causes? Instead of making this premise the crux of their movie as they should have, the filmmakers drag all the characters over to some secret underground complex next to a snowbound lake to do battle with a pretty conventional villain and have them indulge in all the explosions, gun battles, kickboxing fight sequences etc. that are the standard accoutrements of any self-respecting modern day action film.

People seem to be enamored of "X2," even more, perhaps, than they were of the original "X-Men." I wish I could count myself among them. But as one who genuinely loved the original, I must say that I am less than enamored with this particular installment. I may be a minority dissenting voice in this regard, but I view "X2," for all its special effects wizardry, as a disappointing missed opportunity, a film that fails to develop on a deeper level the great themes that were laid out for it in the original. I have my fingers crossed for "X-Men 3."

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Ruined Comic
Review: For the reviewer who stated that fans of the comic book will like this film, i think your wrong, the movie did the comic no justice, especially towards my favorite character, Wolverine. The story in the movies are almost completely changed from the comic book, i was in utter shock with #1 and #2. Not only does the movie drag on about an hour too long it's just a complete disappointment to hardcore X-Men fans atleast to ones i know. I'm in disbelief at how Wolverine's character was distroyed.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Xcellent sequel
Review: Who says hollywood sequels are always a letdown?
The X-Men franchise went ballistic with the release of Singer's second foray into Marvel's mutant universe.
Some would complain that the special effects overshadowed the story, to those people I remind them this movie is a comic adaptation, not Spartacus redux. Some may complain there was too much story not enough action in a Marvel big screen extraganza, to these people I remind them if they have ever read an X-Men comic book the comic was always about the characters and story and not neccessarily about da Crash Boom Bang comic effects.
There are more mutants in the sequel we meet Iceman and Nightcrawler, and Colossus has a brief cameo just to name a few, and how could we forget Pyro (ahhh but saying more about him would give it away). Yet this is NOT a case of quantity over quality. The viewer and fan learns more about Wolverine's origins, sees Rogue in blossoming romance and revisits the tension of love triangle between Scott Jean and Wolverine.
I had high expectations when I watched this movie, and honestly say Singer didn't disappoint.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A decent DVD package for an excellent sequel!
Review: X2 was without a doubt the best sequel of 2003, and quite possibly for the past five years (as long as you don't count "The Lord of the Rings" movies which were all filmed at once). And it falls into that exclusive club of actually being better than the previous film (a la "The Empire Strikes Back", "Godfather 2", "Aliens", "Terminator 2", "The Two Towers"). Everything they could have done right with this movie was done. With the premise and charater set up completed in the first movie, Director Singer as able to allow Jackman and the rest of the X-crew to jump into this movie full steam, without any slow down in pace. Supported by a solid story and excellent cast (including franchise newcomers Alan Cumming, Brian Cox, and Kelly Hu), this was definitely a "road picture" in the sense of "The Empire Strikes Back" (the standard that all first sequels seem to be compared to), and there doesn't seem to be a moment wasted on screen. Despite the enormous number of characters in the movie, whenever one of them take center(screen) they are given that moment to shine, from Nightcrawler's breathtaking opening scene, to cameo characters: Kitty Pryde, Syrin, and Colossus (who has THE coolest cut-away reaction shot in the whole movie). At the end you'll hardly believe that you just sat through a movie that was longer than two hours. There has been critism that Kelly Hu was sorely underused in this movie (she does only have one line in the whole picture), but to give her more screen time, for the sake of screen time, would have come off as "filler", in an already full movie, which in its current form X2 was able to avoid. It could be said that Cyclops was used even less than Hu's characters, until his sudden return late in the picture where the pay off is well worth it.

While this movie falls into the cliche of "sequels need to be bigger", it certainly has the story to support the bigger special effects, bigger action, and bigger sets. At not one time does this movie fall into the "flash without substance" trap the way certain "Schumacher" directed "Bat" sequels, or a more recent "Full Throttle" romp, did with a vengeance.

And thankfully they gave X2 the "1.5" treatment the first time round (so there doesn't have to be a 2.5 version) without us having to shell out the extra coin for a second DVD. And the extras are pretty much all you could ask for, without getting a "Director's Cut" of the film. From the theatrical trailers (which are still cool to watch even if you've already seen the film a few times), to in-depth behind-the-scenes documentaries on certain scenes, the film production in general, and well-deserved spotlights on Nightcrawler's character. The extended "Wolverine/Lady Deathstrike" fight scene is a particular gem, (just to see the little bits that were trimmed away to give the movie its PG-13 rating) as is a gag-reel clip involving Jean Grey.

For the longest time, I rated the commentary on "The Matrix" as THE WORST I've ever listened to (that is until I tried to listen to the director's commentary on "Star Trek Nemesis", where the director literally knew jack about Star Trek), so it was so refreshing to get not only a Bryan Singer's commentary, which was full of insight and behind the scenes anecdotes, but to also get a second producer/writer commentary which was just as informative. You can tell these filmmakers had fun and put a lot of passion and hard work into making this movie, which gives us hope that X3 will be just as good if and (more likely) when they make it. Film students won't get the kind of learning infomation as they would from a Macheal Bay commentary, but they are well-worth the listen, and it doesn't hurt that you get to see all the cool action scenes while you listen.

Hey, how can you go wrong with a movie that has Captain Picard, Gandalf, Wolverine, a near-naked supermodel, and two Bond-girls?


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