Rating: 
Summary: Hopefully the screenplay is better then the novel....
Review: Movie novelizations tend to be pretty low par reading. And when Chris Claremont writes something, it's useually bound to be long and tiresome reading. Thus is the case with this book...it's way too long and you stop caring about the characters after about ten pages of script. Don't get me wrong, sometimes Claremont does write something good, but not this book, It also means that some writers can not write anything outside of comics.
Rating: 
Summary: Not bad for a novelization.
Review: Reading this novelization makes me want to see the movie more than I did before.
Picking up right after the first movie, the story follows the X-Men as things start to go wrong even worst than before. A government official, William Stryker, stages a raid on Xavier's mansion after the president is nearly killed by a mutant. Forced to flee, the school is scattered. Professor X and Cyclopes go to visit Magneto, where they are captured by Stryker. Storm and Jean Grey search for the assassin and Wolverine is left at the school. After th attack, the students flee, and Wolverine, Rogue, Bobby and John group and leave as well. Magneto escapes his prison and joins the growing X-Men force. They find that the professor has been captured and go to rescue him, and the book ends on a stunning set of action scenes.
Overall, this book was pretty good. I'd like to see them fit every thing into a movie, because there was a lot there. Among some of the good points was the introduction of Nightcrawler. He was definitly one of my favorite characters and one of the most interesting. Wolverine got a lot of page time, and in the book, we dig into his past even more than in the first movie. He got some pretty nice action scenes in as well. Bobby and John had a larger part than last time, where we only saw them in a couple of scenes. Bobby is the Iceman and John is known as Pyro. They're also some of the more intesting characters.
Finally, the events in the book fell together nicely, although there were some scenes that didn't have to really be there. Wolverine and co. escaping from the mansion and going to Bobby's house was interesting, but didn't really advance the story too much. Same with Wolverine's scenes with Jean Grey. But they did provide backround for the story and may play a larger part in the future.
I found parts of the end confusing. Not to give much away, but the Professor uses Cerebro to stricken a large number of Mutants and later, humans. This was not explained too much, and would have been interesting to read more about.
Overall, a decent read, with plenty of action.
Rating:
Summary: A good buy for X-fans.
Review: Released almost two full months before the debut of the film upon which it is based, X-MEN 2 is substantial adaptation of a fairly lean screenplay by longtime X-MEN comics scribe, Chris Claremont. Weighing in at over four hundred pages of fairly dense text, the first impression one gets is of a real book, and not the usual movie tie-in dreck with a slim page count, large print and generous margins. Unfortunately, the promise is only partly kept, and by the end readers may very well wish the work was just a bit shorter.Since plot is half the fun when it comes to the X-Men, perhaps it's best not to delve too deeply into that aspect of the book. Suffice it to say that all the heroes from X-MEN, 2000's hit film that breathed life into the moribund superhero genre, return for more action. They're joined by fan-favorites from the comic. Some, like the midnight blue and tailed teleporter Nightcrawler, have a significant role to play in the course of the story. Others, like Jubilation Lee, who adventured with Wolverine in his long-running solo comic as Jubilee, have far less to do. Two of the original film's quartet of villains return, as well. Magneto begins the novel still imprisoned in his plastic cell, and the shape-changing Mystique continues to impersonate X-MEN baddie Senator Robert Kelly. But X-MEN 2 isn't just a rehash of old battles. The new storyline expands the roster of enemies to include mutant-hater William Stryker, a covert operative for the government, and his implacable bodyguard Yuriko. Stryker's force of well-trained soldiers figure heavily in the set pieces in the book, providing ample fodder for the likes of Wolverine, who really gets to cut loose with his adamantium claws in a way that might surprise some readers. Claremont does his best to put meat on X-MEN 2's bones. With seventeen years of experience writing various X-Men comics, he certainly knows the characters and their universe. Regrettably, because X-MEN 2 is a movie tie-in, he's not free to take the story in new directions. This translates into a great deal of interior monologue on the part of the characters and large chunks of exposition that sometimes repeat themselves at different points during the novel. The story of how Rogue got the white streak in her hair, an incident from X-MEN, is re-told on three separate occasions. Needless to say, this kind of thing can grow annoying very quickly. Claremont also displays a tendency to want to include too much of the comics' background. The filmic X-Men are a reasonably pared-down affair without too much baggage, and Claremont's cameos by many peripheral X-comic characters serve merely to pad out the length of the book. In the end, one must make a decision how best to judge X-MEN 2. As a movie tie-in, the book succeeds very well, despite the occasional editorial mishap and Claremont's sometimes dense style. Taken as an original work, X-MEN 2 would be considered only an average entry, too dependent on other media to stand as a strong work on its own terms. Die-hard X-fans who can't get enough of the films or the characters should not hesitate to grab this volume, as it's well worth their time. Others may wish to consider before plunking down the bucks.
Rating:
Summary: Love Claremont's work, only he coudl bring this to fruition
Review: Teh problem with Uncanny is that its Xmen leftovers. Angel?---the most dangerous XMan ever next to Iceman and Nightcrawler, with WOlverine thrown in to make sure someone will buy this book. Stacey X, the mutant prostitute with the heart of gold? LOL Thsi Uncanny series is [just bad]. I mean really. Teh interestign part of adding the Jugegrnaut to the team is a nice touch, something original darting it's head in. But this book lacks direction. New X-Men seems to be about the future of teh Xmen and Xtreme seems to follow the theme of self-manifestation and determination and Uncanny seems to be about all the Xmen you would never call on to save the world. Now if that were followed up on and this was the B team that no one had much faith in that would be cool. Adding some New Mutants, XForce members, Generation X (they chose Husk over Jubilee and Monet---ugh! and here she's proven to be rather dunderclass). There's no spark here. Its Xmen drudgery. Against Black Tom and his amazing plant powers. Then Lobo wolf men with the most assinine, self-pontificating write overs about evolution. Thsi should be the dirty team, teh schizos, the mess ups, the forgottens doing dirty work, the stealth team, instead it's the yellow bus, reject Xmen. The addiiton of Northstar is a nice twist in the right direction but the whoel team needs to be those kinds of twists. Throw in some villains, some humans (you know I've always wondered about that part----for all their co-existence, peaceful harmony talk there are no human members of the team---this would be a good place to experiement with that concept. We keep getting the human perspective from Xmen, we shoudl get it from humans. They need a token memeber.)
Though this review is for New XMen, I have to say that Uncanny and Extreme average overall into my rating of 4 stars. I know there's been a lot of hullabaloo about Morrison's work on New X-Men---new directions, excitement, blah blah. However I'm not so sure much has changed so radically. By measuring change I mean if Morrison didn't write anymore issues would there be a vast change in the X-Men. Ok, Emma Frost as a member is fun and a good twist, however I think that the creation of new characters and the wholesale tossing out of others (like the New Mutants, who're comign back in yet another series to run 50-100 issues and be cancelled along the lines of New Mutants, Generation X and X-Force) rather than integrating them eventually into the team. I think this is the main deficit of teh XMen. Characters created that are likeable, taht are durable, eventually can't be changed in any significant way.
Prof. X having a twin sister who is wholesale evil was nice, though from the first panel Cassandra appeared in, I knew who and what she was. Maybe I've been reading comics too long to be surprised too deeply..........
There was a HUGE, I mean HUGE storyline buildup to Cassandra stealing the Prof.'s body and returning with the Shiar to wax the Xmen out. And teh fight was.........ehhhhh....not that scary. I mean everyone pretty much stayed status quo. Morrison is twisting but not changing. At least in Xtreme, Psylocke is dead, dead, dead. Jean is having Phoenix trips again, Beats is upset because he's hideous, Wolverine is all violence talk and menace and Emma is a nice bit of relief as someone who's been there, done that. Cyclops, easily teh most boring person at a party is purposefully written as stiff, which is interesting and his affair with Emma, another interesting point but will he and Jean divorce over this? Nope. Status quo.
My measure of a great writer is that when you look back on the 20-50 issues they've done is it an entirely new playing field? Is anything of consequence changing?
Ok, the school is out and officially a mutant academy, which has possibilities but in many ways over the years it has been outted, just not as crowded. A lot of teh X-Men's main stable of enemies are either gone, dead or well........X-Men. So it makes you wonder what a real threat is going to be. This book dialogue wise and visually is sometimes good, even great and the overall plottin gof a maturing X-Men being more present in the world is interesting but I don't feel a sense of danger, a sense of forboding. I mean my big question is when a threat arrives, honestly, does anyone reading this book feel like someone might not survive? That Cyclops and Phoenix will break up? That Beast really might be gay? There are playful twists, stunts, but not true change going on.
Cassandra, a serious threat was defeated too easily, and by easily, I mean there was very little collateral damage that we got to see. Supposedly she rendered tne Shiar empire to rubble, that should've been part of what the readers SEE not just were told. Good writing shows you not just tells you. Essentially compressing Cassandra into a mental file inside of a metamorph was unique but somehow too easy. Then again, I have to wonder why Emma, Phoenix and Prof. X together couldn't fight her? Morrison is a good writer, I agree and I'm sure a lot of the things he's done have been uphill battles, unfortunately the XMen are stuck in their own quaqmire of history and static characterizations. It would have been really interesting to see this new Cyclops who had been part of Apocalypse. That theme was explored for two minutes but not truly cracked open.
Also is it just me or has anyone ever considered that these young people are the Prof's puppets? Wouldn't someone so telepathically formidable leak his desires to those around him? That would be an excellent area to be explored.
Rating:
Summary: X-Men 2
Review: The book is a real surprise and i know it will be that way to whoever reads it including the X-men fans. The plot is far better than the previous story. It is more intense and action filled.
The villians are more evil than Magneto was in the first story. It has a lot of surprises and gives a sense that people can be together no matter who or what they are.
I enjoyed it a lot and i hope that whoever reads the book after me will come to the same conclusion or at least acknowledge that it was the best X-men story so far that has been written. The book is 408 pages long and I hope people don't complain about its lenght.
Rating: 
Summary: An okay adaptation but its better if you see the movie!
Review: The book to X2 is good, I just wish it had the following: A shorter length (about 400 pages, YIKES!)
Pages of full color photos
Better artwork If the book was kept to about 200-300 pages it would have been better, but instead I went on to read "HOLES" which is such a great book. Get HOLES instead of this book and see the movie "X2" it is much better than the book!
Rating:
Summary: Not a novelization...literature!
Review: This film novelization is (a) much superior to the film and (b) able to stand alone as a piece of literature. It simply is a good summer read that bogs down mainly when it is trying to describe in detail the slam-bang-blowupthedam pyrotechnics at the end of the film. Jean Grey, Logan, Scott Summers, Rogue, Eric Lehnsherr, Mystique, and the tragic Kurt Wagner are all fully-developed characters to the author Claremont, and the length of narrative and detailed dialogue that he offers is necessary to the reader's understanding of the complex people behind the superpowers. This is why there is such a thing as a 55-year-old X-Man fan, and why I'm not embarrassed to have enjoyed this book far more than the noisy but pedestrian film. Of course, it's not GREAT literature...a previous critic notes that Claremont tends to overuse metaphors and similes...but it's still a pleasure to read, and isn't that part of the literary experience?
Rating:
Summary: Not a novelization...literature!
Review: This film novelization is (a) much superior to the film and (b) able to stand alone as a piece of literature. It simply is a good summer read that bogs down mainly when it is trying to describe in detail the slam-bang-blowupthedam pyrotechnics at the end of the film. Jean Grey, Logan, Scott Summers, Rogue, Eric Lehnsherr, Mystique, and the tragic Kurt Wagner are all fully-developed characters to the author Claremont, and the length of narrative and detailed dialogue that he offers is necessary to the reader's understanding of the complex people behind the superpowers. This is why there is such a thing as a 55-year-old X-Man fan, and why I'm not embarrassed to have enjoyed this book far more than the noisy but pedestrian film. Of course, it's not GREAT literature...a previous critic notes that Claremont tends to overuse metaphors and similes...but it's still a pleasure to read, and isn't that part of the literary experience?
Rating:
Summary: Surprisingly Good
Review: Well, I don't know how this compares to the first X-Men movie novelization (because I was afraid to read it, after having seen the movie), but this one was written quite well. I can't say that I am terribly surprised by that fact, since it was written by the father of good X-Men stories, Chris Claremont, but I thought that the fact that it was supposed to be a movie would butcher it. However, I have my doubts that most of this will translate well over to the big screen. If the actors pull off the acting half as well as they should, Hugh Jackman and Famke Janssen will both get Oscars. The characters grew and developed, seemed real and were three-dimensional. I actually cared about them in this book, as opposed to the first movie where I had the ignomious urge to see Wolverine get hurt just to watch the wounds heal up. (When people watch your movie just for a gimmicky special effect, you should rethink your script). Hopefully Stryker is cast well, because his is a key role. John Malkovich might do a good job in the role. Anyway, pick up the book, its good. Read it after the movie though, that way you will get the most from both. Harkius
Rating:
Summary: A comment on the movie vs. book ending discrepancy
Review: Well, I saw the movie and have acquired the book, but haven't read the book yet.
However, I know the ending is different, and wanted to help explain why, based on an interview with Chris Claremont I read on a comic book message board.
Simply, Chris had to write and complete the book before the movie was finished - far enough ahead that it didn't allow for any late changes in the script. I think Chris would've preferred that they match as well, but due to production lead times and such, his book had to be wrapped up a lot earlier than the film was.
Just don't want Mr. Claremont unfairly picked on for things out of his control.
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