When it comes to blockbuster summer movies, the test as to its quality isn't the impressiveness of the special effects. It's what happens when you tale them away.
If you've a great script, a talented director and a cast that knows their craft, then taking all the FX out of the movie will not detract from its impact.
That's the case with X2, or X-men 2, Bryan Singer's brilliant follow up to his 2000 original. The script seamlessly integrates the Wolverine origin, Stryker's Mutant War, Magneto's agenda and the Dark Pheonix set up into a
formula one superhero express. Despite the amount of plot to cover, Singer never forgets to keep us glued to the characters so that Storm, Nightcrawler, Rogue, Iceman, Pyro, Magneto, Professor X, Jean Grey, Cyclops and Wolverine
all have meaty compelling stories while the other stuff's going on.
The film adopts an adult thriller tone that doesn't pander to the tween superhero crowd. There are tons of iconic moments from things as simple as Logan pointing his claws at a cat to the magnificent White House assaination attempt.
The action is exciting with Stryker's Mansion raid being a standout too. With the close quarter combat the action excells especially
in the Deathstrike / Wolverine smakdown. Internal organs are puncture and concrete pillars are decimated before the clever resoltion.
Singer's direction is, once again supurb; each composition and camera shot helps tell the story powerfully and concisely.
You know a movies great when it flies by while watching it; X2 is 2 hours 10 minutes long, but it feel like a mere hour and a half.
1 comment:
Bryan Singer's X2 is my second favourite superhero film after the joint one-two punch of Batman Begins & The Dark Knight. Quite simply it is awesome and sits proudly alongside Nolan's two Batman films and Sam Raimi's Spider-Man 2 as the absolute epitome of intelligent, entertaining, compelling superhero filmmaking.
Like those three other films X2 isn't just a great superhero film. It is a great film. Period. Singer treats the story and characters with total seriousness and respect. He uses them as ciphers for real life issues and problems which connect with the audience on an emotional, primal level. This is what all great sci fi and fantasy storytelling does: uses fantastical characters and situations to reflect real life back at us.
And all the while X2 stays sleekly economic while balancing many characters, plots and themes producing some wonderfully cinematic moments, gloriously brutal action (Wolvie going stab happy in the mansion) and top notch actors in arguably their finest roles. No matter what Hugh Jackman does the rest of his life he'll ALWAYS be Wolverine. And the ending is classic, loaded with mythic symbolism and genuine painful emotion, but also with the promise of rebirth. It's the Star Trek 2 ending. And it proves just as powerful here as in that great movie. It's just a crying shame Singer wasn't able to finish the trilogy, lumbering us instead with the unsubtle and vision-free Brett Ratner to conclude this amazing mutant odyssey.
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