Review: X2 – X-Men United

X2 – Promotional Poster

While the first X-Men movie has been argued to have launched not only a popular film franchise but also a movie industry phenomenon, it is perhaps the second film in this franchise that insured its survival. X2 has been argued to be one of the best X-Men films ever made, and most would agree that it’s the best of the original trilogy.

Lauren Shuler Donner and Ralph Winter continue as producers for this movie, and Bryan Singer again returns as the director and a writer for X2. In addition, the story-line for this film was written by a team of writers including David Hayter, Zak Penn, Michael Dougherty, and Dan Harris. For this movie, they decided to bring the character of William Stryker (played by Brian Cox) as the main villain. The script was brilliantly written allowing the diverse cast of characters to each play their parts in the overall product. Thus, the main cast from the first movie makes their return for this one.

The story begins when a mysterious teleporting mutant called Nightcrawler (played by Alan Cumming) attempts to assassinate the president of the United States. This again brings to light the issue of mutants existing in the world and all its political implications. Charles Xavier and his team first suspect this to be the work of Magneto and his followers. However, Magneto is still held in prison with little contact with the outside world, negating the likelihood of his involvement. However, Xavier is able to track Nightcrawler to a hiding place in an old church. When Storm and Jean Grey go to investigate, they find that Nightcrawler was acting against his will and retains no memory of the events.

Meanwhile at the White House, the president is working military scientist, Colonel William Stryker, who has been experimenting with mutants for many years. Stryker says that he can handle the problem. Unbeknownst to anyone else, Stryker has tracked down Xavier and his school for mutants and secretly launches an attack to capture each of the students. They barely escape with their lives.

Meanwhile, Xavier meets with Magneto again, only to learn that Stryker has been interrogating him for information and has revealed everything about Xavier’s school. Before Xavier can escape, Stryker has the mutants put to sleep and captures Xavier and Cyclops.

In the aftermath of the attack on the school, Wolverine, Rogue, Bobby and Pyro go into hiding. Eventually, they meet up again with Jean Grey and Storm, but they learn that Stryker has some special plans for Xavier that could spell doom for mankind. As a result the X-Men must then team up with some unlikely allies, invade Stryker’s secret hideout and stop him from achieving his evil scheme.

Michael Fink again returns as the visual effects supervisor for this movie. Like its predecessor, X2 is still riding on the early waves of emerging computer generated technology, and CGI effects were used for a number of key shots. One of the more notable effects was Nightcrawler’s teleporting effects. These were done using double takes both without and with the actor, and then compositing computer generated elements on top. Also, Magneto’s escape from his plastic prison was done using CGI to recreate the falling glass, and CGI was used to create tornadoes when the “X-jet” is being chased by several armed fighters. However, some models and more practical effects were also used for a number of scenes, including the dam breaking at Alkali Lake. Being the second movie in the series, X2 broadens the scale, accomplishing more and building on what was done in the first film. As a result, the film’s effects have a notably more polished and refined appearance than what had been done before.

For this second film, Bryan Singer brought in John Ottman (a long-time collaborator with Singer) as the composer for the film’s score. His music combines the classical orchestral elements of early filmmakers with more synthesized effects of many modern filmmakers. For this movie, Ottman put in a significant amount of effort developing themes and motifs that would become affiliated with the film franchise. Most notably, Ottman composed the main theme for the X-Men, and he also developed some minor themes that are associated with particular characters from the movies. His score for this film and later ones are probably some of the most noted of those done for the X-Men film franchise.

Overall, X2 is one of the standout movies in the series. The plot is well crafted – exploring deep into who the characters are while also giving movie-goers the action and excitement that they crave. It stands strong as the second act in the saga and goes to show why many fans still cling to these early movies as some of the best in the film franchise.