| X2 (2003).
Basically this is thirty minutes longer and about twice as dull as the original
X-Men, complete with the usual bugbear evil military man villain
(named Stryker of course, and played by an obnoxiously preening Brian Cox)
who's evil is enshrined by the fact that he lobotomizes his own mutant son
so as to use him in his fiendish plot to kill every mutant in the world,
by hijacking the spineless Dr. Xavier (once again Patrick Stewart, given
little to do). The X-Men must team up with the nefarious Magnito (Ian McKellan,
who seems to be a bit gayer in this movie than in the previous one) to thwart
this plan. The first film, slickly made and as tersely constructed as its
comic-book source was at least an effortless little piece of Hollywood entertainment,
this one on the other hand is more typical of recent Hollywood action films:
under plotted and overlong, smarmy and melodramatic, with a cynical eye
towards the box-office at all times. Yet the whole thing is a bit curious,
as mutants have now, in the X-Men universe, very nearly wiped out all of
humanity two times, and yet the laughable conclusion would have us believe
that mankind is so big hearted as to forgive such minor transgressions and
move on, c'est la vie and all. Included in the plot is a throwaway
subplot devoted to the origins of Wolverine (Hugh Jackman, continually looking
as if he's ready to burst into song), and the usual stereotype of the mindless
Oriental baggage boy for the villain (Kelly Hu, who's woodenness fits nicely
into the puzzle piece of her roll). Convinced that the movie was about to
conclude after a seemingly endless final action sequence I kept in my seat
despite having to go to the bathroom, and the movie managed to drag on for
about another 20 minutes, suffice to say it was a long 20 minutes. |
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