Fridae

"This is a much better film. It's more epic, it's deeper, it's darker, it's more romantic, it's funnier."
- Bryan Singer, Director of X2 in an interview with Empire Magazine.

Based on the world's best-selling Marvel comics, the first X-Men movie introduces its audience to a world where a new breed of man has emerged as the next step in human evolution: mutant individuals who by virtue of their genetic makeup possess strange and fantastic abilities.

Naturally, since X-Men raked in an impressive US$300 million worldwide, X-pectations have been running high for the sequel. Fortunately, X2: X-Men United is a mutant-a-minute thrill ride which surpasses its predecessor by offering X-tra mutants, X-traordinary action and X-hilarating fun.

While the first movie served as an introduction to the merry band of mutants, X2 picks up shortly after the events of X-Men. The plot of X2 is simple: the government, led by General William Stryker (Brian Cox), has declared open season on mutants following an assassination attempt on the United States President by the diabolical-looking Nightcrawler (Alan Cumming).

To deal with the mounting anti-mutant hysteria, the X-Men find themselves split into different factions: X-babes Storm (Halle Berry) and Jean Grey (Famke Janssen) are dispatched to locate the mysterious Nightcrawler; Professor X (Patrick Stewart) and Cyclops (James Marsden) go off to confront Magneto (Sir Ian McKellen) and end up as hostages of Stryker; and Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) winds up playing housemaid to junior X-Men Rogue (Anna Paquin), Iceman (Shawn Ashmore) and Pyro (Aaron Standford).

Meanwhile, Stryker, a former US military leader turned anti-mutant radical with a personal vendetta against Professor X and connections to Wolverine's mysterious past, launches a government-sanctioned raid against Professor X's School for Gifted Youngsters. In the fallout that follows, the remaining X-Men are forced to team up with their arch-nemesis Magneto to put a stop to Stryker's nefarious plans to kill every mutant on earth.

Directed by Brian Singer, X2 reunites the original members of first X-Men movie. While Hugh Jackman's hairspray abusive and claw-popping Wolverine still carries the weight of the movie on his broad feral shoulders, most of the cast have also had their roles expanded and their powers upgraded.

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For instance, weather witch Storm (who has thankfully found herself a respectable hairstylist) is no longer limited to flying up elevator shafts and shooting off lightning bolts - she can now summon dancing twisters and whip up a mean arctic chill. Professor X is likewise no longer restricted to mind-reading parlour tricks and delivering his lines with gravitas - he can now mentally freeze crowds and even possess the power to wipe out all mutants or humans on earth using Cerebro.

Most importantly, Jean Grey has progressed from being the team burden capable only of low level telepathy and levitating books to being able to disable heat-seeking missiles with a rapid flutter of her come-hither eyelashes. In fact, Jean Grey's burgeoning psi-powers undergo a quantum leap in the final climactic scene where she holds back a massive flood, levitates the Blackbird while maintaining an elegant pose stolen from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

X2 also brings back the X-Men's deadly enemies and fan-favourites Magneto, the metal manipulator as well as his morpho-manicial gender-bending sidekick Mystique played by uber-babe Rebecca Romijn-Stamos. Between the two, Magneto and Mystique manage to steal the thunder from our mutant heroes with their impressive mastery of their powers, arch banter and killer one-liners.

In addition to familiar X-faces, X2 also introduces brand new mutants. There's Nightcrawler, a tormented soul whose mutant abilities include the ability to stick to walls, teleport from one place to another and quote ad verbatim from the Bible in a thick German accent.

There's the flame-fixated bad boy Pyro who controls fire (what else?), plays second fiddle to the blossoming romance between Rogue and Iceman, and eventually joins Magneto and his brotherhood of evil mutants. Then there's the deadly Lady Deathstrike (Scorpion King's Kelly Hu), Stryker's personal mutant bodyguard, who is essentially Wolverine in panties with a serious case of over-grown adamantium nails.

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Unfortunately, with so many X-characters fighting for so little screen time, it is inevitable that some characters find themselves in underdevelopment hell. Lady Deathstrike has all but one single line of dialogue in the entire movie while Cyclops is once again reduced to being a background prop, albeit one that tries to convey a range of emotions from jealousy to grief using only his jawline.

Well-rounded and under-used mutant heroes and villains aside, X2 is filled with top-notch action sequences including Nightcrawler's infiltration of the White House, Magneto's spectacular escape from his glass prison, Wolverine's slice-and-dice death match with Lady Deathstrike and the final assault on Stryker's secret HQ Alkali Lake amongst others.

However, there are also a number of non-action scenes that are simply priceless. There's the pseudo-rape scene where Mystique seduces a prison guard in a toilet cubicle and while removing his pants, pauses to utter: "Ooohh� Velcro!"; there's the bitch-of-the-movie scene where Magneto (in collaboration with Mystique) passes a snide remark on the hyper-sensitive Rogue: "We just love what you've done with your hair"; and of course, there's the "coming out" scene where Iceman reveals his mutation to his family members only to have his clueless but concerned mother ask: "Have you tried not being a mutant?"

In fact, both X-Men and X2 have long and rightly been regarded as modern homosexual parables. The basic premise of the mutant X-Men lies in the fact that they are outcasts who are feared and loathed by a society, which cannot accept them for their differences. Building upon the similarities between the plight of mutants and the plight of minority groups everywhere, both movies therefore become effective mouthpieces promoting the acceptance of all individuals and groups who have long been ostracized for being "different" from the "norm", be they mutant, gay or otherwise.

Underlying homosexual subtext notwithstanding, with X2's bigger budget, better storyline and souped-up special effects, movie goers would need one hell of an X-cuse not to catch the movie. And in view of that, one doesn't even need mutant powers of clairvoyance to announce that X2 is guaranteed to dominate the box office and leave movie audiences worldwide in a state of X-cstasy.

That is until Matrix: Reloaded hits the big screen.