Or is it X-Men 2? Seriously, before I start, I have to know what the story is with this. In the movie itself and online, its referred to as X2, but I am, as I am writing this, looking at a copy of the movie and the box clearly has X-Men 2. It came in a box set of special editions alongside X-Men 1, 3 and Origins Wolverine (ANOTHER TIME!!! It can wait!). What's going on? I know it is a localization thing in terms of marketing, but was there really no room in the movie to make the title X-Men 2? Or have X2 be the name of the movie in the rest of the world? PICK ONE!
Anyway, moving onto the plot, with Senator Kelly dead, the Mutant Registration Act was put on hold, however, there are some who still contain a bitter, bitter hatred towards mutants. Enter William Striker, someone who is known for experimenting on mutants, and would love nothing more than to kill all of them. Thanks to his son being a mutant with mind control powers, Striker has been able to create a serum that can temporarily mind control almost any mutant, with a believed exception being any telepath. Using this, he was able to orchestrate a plan to spark even more fear in humans regarding mutants, and implement a more long-term goal of using Professor Xavier in a recreation of Cerebros to have him try and kill every mutant on the planet. Thrown into the mix though was (potentially) a heavy handling of sequel bait. The strange thing is, I don't know if it's corporate requirements from Fox, or Singer's desires because apparently, the same thing happened again in X-Men Apocalypse. While the next X-Men review will go into more detail on it, the sequel baiting in this movie all relates to an entity known as the Phoenix Force, a power that can supercharge mutant powers, and is wildly known to be attached to one character, Jean Grey. While I do like that they're taking the time to build up the Phoenix Force, there are problems with the execution, which I'll go into next week. As for how it is handled here, it never comes off as natural. It feels like they're stopping the movie to go "I wonder what's happening to Jean, something is clearly wrong. Look at how she's acting, the fire in her eyes, the steam. I wonder if that means something?" Granted, at the time, while it was possible, you couldn't rely on fans of the source to notice the subtle hints, then go online and shouting out at the world "OMG ITS FINALLY HAPPENING!!!", but at the same time, you don't need to bring it up several times in the movie. We know Jean has telekinetic powers and a small amount of telepathy, she stated that herself in the last movie. You could have had some of the "power surges" she goes through in the movie just be her using her power, you didn't need to tie it into the Phoenix. The last one I could understand, as a "she's using so much power that it awakens the Phoenix Force", but she didn't need firebird teases for trying to move a missile.
As for the main plot, I do like Striker as a villain, as he does act as an excellent mirror to Magneto. He is basically "What if Magneto was just a regular human?". This is further reinforced when Magneto has a chance to save his friend, but instead, he changes Cerebro 2 and uses the mutant mind controlling Charles into making him kill all the humans instead of all the mutants. On the subject of the cast though, they are all back (with a few exceptions), and a lot of the performances have improved a lot. The strong points are still strong, and even the weaker characters like Rogue are better in X2 then they are in the first movie (though I'm not sure if that's because she is a minor character in the movie, or because they had her tone down the accent). There aren't many faults I can find with the casting, though to touch on the story again, I'm kinda surprised they kept teasing Kitty Pride in both this and the last movie. She can walk through walls, she's not a god. Though it has to be said, the standout role of the movie is... the boy with the lizard tongue, get that man an Oscar for his career-defining role from 15 years ago!
In terms of presentation, its hit and miss. The fight scenes look worse here then they did in the first movie, some of the effects look awful. Some like Magneto using the iron in a guard's blood to make T-1000 textured platforms was cool to watch, but there are other moments like Pyro's fireballs that are comparable to Cheese Fire from Mighty No.9. The soundtrack also falls into that mix of good and bad, ending up in the middle as a result. Ok, seen better, seen worse. While the cast is strong with a good main story to back it up, the movie's presentation overall brings it down to that middle of the road territory. On the plus side, no Hulk Poodles in this movie, and far more traditional editing does put it above Hulk.. if that means anything at all... The calm before the storm is almost here, as up next is Spider-Man 3, followed by X-Men 3: The Last Stand, after that? We come to MAYvel... even though it's starting late April... look I work with what I've got ok? See you on Wednesday.
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