PulpLit.net

X2: X-Men United

Mutants in black leather.

You have only your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man to thank for this.

Bolstered by the webcrawler's wild success last summer, spun to the tune of $500 million earned in international sawbucks, Hollywood has gone comicbook crazy. A quick glance at your midsummer marquee looks like one of those dream team superhero pairings debated in playgrounds everywhere - with The Hulk squaring off against the manga-inspired stylings of The Matrix and the X-Men playing ball with The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

There's a reason, beyond good economics, that comic books provide great narratives for film franchise. Once one gets past the silly costumes and goofy nicknames, they find stories that hearken back to good old fashioned myth-making - with tortured heroes and misunderstood villains vying to for their proper place in a world that fears them.

Granted the original X-Men preceded Spider-Man by a full two years and did surprisingly well at the box-office. In fact, its success could be considered one of the contributing factors to the settling of that pesky decade-long lawsuit waged by Columbia Pictures for the Spidey property. While X-Men appeased the core fan base by depicting its ragtag band of superpowered mutants with great reverence to their back stories (fleshed out in over 30 years of comic history) the film faltered in a rushed third act. Running a lean 106 minutes (two-thirds of that devoted to introduction and exposition) the film needed more room to breath. It doesn't take the world's greatest telepath to deduce that the Hollywood suits ordered Charles Xavier's Children of the Atom to a rushed battle royale atop a cheap Statue of Liberty set piece.

Now X2: X-Men United storms the screen, bigger and brawnier than its predecessor - no doubt a direct result of the raise granted by its production company. Is it better? Well, the two-year maturity has helped the franchise shed its awkward adolescent gait for a more confident stride, assured that a fan base (beyond the Big Fat Geek contingent) would be lining up on opening day.

Picking right up a few months following the events of the first film, X2 assumes we know the Who's Who in the Marvel Universe. After a blitzkrieg assault on the While House and an assassination attempt on the president by the mysterious teleporting mutant Nightcrawler (Alan Cumming), the X-Men, lead by Professor Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart) find themselves at the mercy of rising fear and intolerance among the population. Pressured to avenge this act of domestic terrorism, the President unleashes the shock troops of military scientist William Stryker (Brian Cox) to root out the mutant enemy. Add to the mix that self-proclaimed Master of Magnetism, Magneto (Sir Ian McKellan) and his blue-tinged cohort Mystique (Rebecca Romijn-Stamos) and X-Men find themselves besieged on all sides.

Director Bryan Singer returns to helm this second installment. Singer, the wunderkind director behind The Usual Suspects and the Stephen King adaptation, Apt Pupil, revels in the freedom afforded by the financial success of X2's predecessor. While Singer employs special effects in almost every frame - he seems to have caught on to a little secret that King George Lucas has forgotten - snappy visuals may treat the eyeballs but its story and character development that ultimately captures a viewers heart.

Granted the story is derived from the funny pages so don't go looking for Conrad, even if Singer and screen writers David Hayter and Zak Penn do point their characters to some dark spaces - most notably Hugh Jackman's Wolverine, who continues his quest to unlock the secret of his mysterious origin. The story told is perfect fodder for the summertime multiplex crowd, building on the themes of intolerance and alienation from in the first film while laying some compelling hooks for the inevitable third chapter.

Singer is wise to play several scenes with a wink and a nudge. The heavy-handed metaphors of the first film are goosed slightly - most notably in a scene where Bobby Drake (a.k.a. Iceman) 'comes out' to his parents. After settling down for a sincere heart to heart with Mom & Dad, where he unveils the secret identity he's been loathe to discuss, his Mom asks quizzically "Haven't you ever tried… not being a mutant?" While the scene provides some nice levity, it also performs double duty by fleshing out the universe, and the problems, these characters inhabit.

Singer spins a nice twist to many of his explosive action sequences. He stages an ingenious prison break for Magneto from his plastic holding cell (which I saw coming but nevertheless had me grinning the entire time) as well as an inventive and humorous sequence in which Mystique infiltrates and dismantles a top-secret military installation. Singer also plays some of his action scenes straight, with a chilling attack on the X-Men's mansion (where several fringe mutants make cameo appearances to the utter squealing delight of Geek Nation) as well as a climactic brutal battle between Wolverine and the similarly long-taloned Lady Deathstrike (Kelly Hu).

The performances are grand across the board. The film features a large ensemble cast, with some characters getting short shrift (Halle Berry's Storm remains a marginal fringe player who despite whipping up some nifty twisters most likely won't be blowing back this way again) while others seeing their roles and character importance greatly expanded upon. Famke Janssen, plot twist notwithstanding, must be very happy with her agent at the great deal of importance placed upon her burgeoning telepath Jean Grey. Sir Ian McKellan swiftly kicks Sir Alec Guinness to the curb in grasping the mantle of Geek God with his roles in this series as well as his portrayal of Gandalf in the Lord of the Rings flicks. Where's that Dumbledore trifecta???

As escapist entertainment goes, X2 is a marvel.