X2

Hugh Jackman's Wolverine is off exploring his ice bound origins; Famke Janssen's Jean Grey is worrying about her emerging Phoenix powers and a boring haircut (probably). And, thanks to her Monster's Ball Academy Award and eye candy turns in Die Another Day and Swordfish, Halle Berry's Storm is now allowed in-front of the camera. In this sequel she gets to not only lead a reconnaissance mission but fly a ridiculous plane that looks like a Lockheed SR-71 designed by Japanese toymakers. Storm also has a much better haircut than Jean Grey. How's that for a promotion? Anna Paquin's Rogue is thriving at school and has landed herself a new boyfriend, Shawn Ashmore's Iceman, who looks like Zack from Saved by the Bell and does very little even when the group is threatened with fifty foot waves. You'd think his total mastery of ambient water vapour would be a boon. Oh and James Marsden's Cyclops still has a curtain fringe and a blue Mazda that he doesn't drive? They're struggling to find things for him to do.

Despite the soap opera described above, director Bryan Singer's X2 is a much more confident and assured film than its predecessor. Action peaks early with the introduction of a teleporting goblin named Nightcrawler, played by Alan Cumming. Every dust-up that follows then is just okay. Each of the X-Men are finally allowed to be a gifted, individual components though, instead of a staff of irritating, scholastic bores. Wolverine is still the matinee star focus mind you, fighting a female opposite played by Kelly Hu and dimly snooping around military mutation tanks, but at least we aren't being asked to consider absolutely everything in this world from his louche perspective. The bad mutants get a lob-sided push as compensation: Rebecca Romijin-Stamos' Mystique is easily the most capable character in the whole film, quietly accomplishing amazing feats while the rest of the mutant menagerie struggle with basic heavies. Similarly, Magneto gets so much dramatic focus that his character starts to feel strangely indecisive. The reliance on Erik is understandable in that Sir Ian McKellen is so good he'll make it all look like a breeze - and he does - but by time the film begins to conclude his Magneto is less a consistent, organic character and more of a rolling plot generator. In particular, his decision to leave Patrick Stewart's Professor X to the wolves has the distinct whiff of bullshit about it.