X-MEN 2: X2 - X-Men United @ シネコン: CineMa Complex

/ 2005-08-25 Even more so that its predecessor, "X2: X-Men United" is more of a treat for those of us weaned on Marvel Comics and know the complete back story of every single mutant superhero who pops up through the movie. When Dr. Hank McCoy (Steve Bacic) is shown debating the rights of Mutants on television we recognize he is one of the original merry mutants in yellow spandex, the Beast. During the final shot of the film we nod knowingly because our intimate knowledge of "X-Men" #101 means we recognize the strange shape and can hazard a pretty good guess as to what happens in the third X-Men movie before the credits even start to roll on this one.

This film is better than the first one, which is a very good sign in the world of Hollywood where a sequel is one thing but a franchise is even better. The first time around the X-Men, the good mutants of Professor Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart), had to stop Magneto (Ian McKellen) and his bad mutants (the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants for those who know their X-Men lore), although there were humans trying to push a Mutant Registration Act through Congress. This time it is the ordinary humans who are after all the mutants in the world, ironically, by using mutants in the effort. In charge of the effort is General William Stryker (Brian Cox), who has found a means of extracting information from Magneto about Xavier's School for Gifted Children as well as some other ways of allowing him exercise some degree of mind control.

The worst thing I can say about "X2" is that it begins with the best action sequences the entire film. A mutant gets into the White House and goes after the President (Cotter Smith) in the Oval Office. We know that this is Kurt Wagner (Alan Cummings), a.k.a. Nightcrawler, who has the gift of teleportation (apparently without the omnipresent of brimstone this time around). This surprises us because he is one of the "good" mutants, but the answer will be forthcoming. He is one of the few new characters introduced into the mix and the tatoos they have worked into Nightcrawler's make-up are superb; on the basis of Nightcrawler and Zhaan from "Farscape," there simply need to be more blue chracters on television and in the movies.

Anyhow, Nightcrawler's attack on the President gives Stryker carte blanche to go after the mutants and his first target is the school in Westchester, New York. When the troops hit Xavier's school is probably the second best action sequence in the film, and we are still only a half hour into the film (the final action sequences has great significance but is considerably less spectacular). For those who remember when Marvel editor Jim Shooter put his foot down about X-Men characters doing any actual killing (e.g., a whole planet of asparagus people), it is rather surprising to see Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) slicing and dicing his way through the shock troops. From that point on the goal is for the X-Men to stay ahead of Stryker's army and try to stop his plan and save mutant-kind.

There are echoes of a lot of different epic adventures from the X-Men comic books in this film. The script by Michael Dougherty and Daniel P. Harris is based on a story created by David Hayter, Zak Penn, and director Bryan Singer, who were obviously inspired by the writers (Stan Lee, Len Wein, and Chris Claremont) and artists (Jack Kirby, Dave Cockrum, and John Byrne) of the comic books. There is still Wolverine trying to get between Jean Grey (Famke Janssen) and Scott Summers/Cyclopes (James Marsden), as well as the sudden spikes in Jean's powers. Rogue (Anna Paquin) is trying to figure out a way of having the most tentative of physical relationships with Bobby Drake/Iceman (Shawn Ashmore), while John Allerdyce/Pyro (Aaron Stanford) is trying to figure out whether or not he should switch sides. There are a lot of characters being juggled here; Halle Berry has an Oscar and is one of the good mutants, but she does not have much to do except exercise her powers to control the weather periodically. Rebecca Romijn-Stamos gets more to do as Mystique, except, of course, you can never tell.

Ultimately what makes this film less than perfectlly satisfying is the fact that the nature of the characters compels the writers to create artificial restraints. When Marvel put out the "Ultimate X-Men" comic books it proved what I had long suspected: that you can really only have one fight between the X-Men and Magneto for all the marbles because as long as he has his helmet on, the Mutant Master of Magneticism is pretty much invincible. This is proven in "X2" when Magneto finally escape; keep in mind how he does it and then come up with a reason why he does not simply go out and do that to every human being on earth. Similarly, when the troops attack the school, there is more fleeing than fighting, although the tranquillizer darts used by the invaders do not work on the armored Piotr Rasputin/Colossus (Daniel Cudmore) or Kitty Pryde/Shadowcat (Katie Stuart) with her ability to walk through walls. Granted, the important thing is to get the kids to relative safety, but Wolverine does not have to do the Horatio at the bridge act.

The key to where the next film can succeed even better is contained in the climax, not only in terms of story of self sacrifice involved but also in the promise of rebirth. In other words, the next time around "X-Men" can reach operatic heights if they do any justice at all to the Dark Phoenix epic. Cross your fingers, True Believers.