X2

[dmarley]

What? A fandom-related post, you say? Shock! Horror!

I finally had the chance to see the second X-Men movie on DVD this past week. I should say that I am in complete ignorance about the comic storyline, apart from what I've absorbed simply by being in fandom for many years, so any canonical lapses will have gone over my head. So, with that caveat in place:

I liked the first movie a great deal, and I liked this one almost as much. It had good action, much better utilization of super-powers, continuing introduction of uber-cool characters, and the return of all the neat folks from the first film. Plus, Peter Wingfield! For probably two whole minutes! And three, four lines! At least! It was enough for a nice fangirl moment, anyway. :)

You know, my friends who read X-Men have mentioned many times how cool Nightcrawler is, so I feel a bit odd suddenly saying, as if it's big news, "Oh my god! Nightcrawler is so cool!" But, there you are. His coolness simply can't be denied. I gather that the tattoos aren't canon, but they looked great on film, and kept him from being just a guy with thick blue make-up on. I'm sad that the tail was so often out of shot, but it was neat when it would suddenly flash up behind him.

I also liked the way Nightcrawler's religious life was handled. It was obviously very important to him, and central to his own life, but it didn't overtly dominate every single little thing he did or said. He genuinely seemed to get strength and support from his faith, which is very cool and is, unfortunately, not something that gets portrayed all that often.

If possible, I like Magneto even more after this film than after the first one. As I mentioned above, I felt that the mutants' powers were used in better ways, and one of the best moments was watching Magneto break out of prison with three small metal balls. Lovely, lovely interactions between him and Mystique, and a beautiful double-cross of the X-Men at the end.

One of my favorite things about Magneto is that it's only his methods that are different from Xavier's, and not necessarily his goals. It was perfectly in character for him (according to my understanding of his movie character, anyway) to work with the X-Men to keep Xavier from destroying all the mutants, and also completely believable that he would then have Xavier turn that same power on the non-mutants.

The plot was good, but it bugged me a bit that Cerebro was, once again, such a central part of it. Granted, in the first movie the mutation machine was the big bad, but Cerebro was still a central plot point, and I felt a certain deja vu when the Professor was once again manipulated/attacked through Cerebro. It wasn't a big deal, but it felt like something of a cheat.

My other problem with the plot was that it was rather fragmented. I enjoyed all the story lines, and thought the plot came together nicely and without confusion--no small feat with so many strands to weave together at the finish. But it's a bit odd when suddenly Nightcrawler is having to introduce himself to Cyclops in the last ten minutes of the film. Then again, it would have probably been horribly unwieldy to have all the X-Men moving around a big herd for two hours, so on the whole I think it worked.

As for the rest of the returning characters, I was glad to see more of Storm and Jean, and more of Bobby, too. With the first movie so focused on Rogue and Wolverine, some of the other characters got a bit of short shrift, but I felt that the characters were more balanced in this story--except for poor Cyclops, who ended up off-screen for most of the middle of the film.

I could probably go on, but those are the highlights of my X2 experience. Here's hoping that the next one is at least as good as the first two. :)

Comments

[wynterhawk.livejournal.com]

Oh, Nightcrawler was too cool. And I agree, the tail should have had more screen time :)

I do hope we get some of the romance with Kurt and Ororo as in the comics. Kurt needs some lovin' too!