X-Men 2 (2002)

Rating: 85%
Let's take a break from the Bond movies, and review X-Men 2...or X2 or X2: X-Men United, whatever you want to call it.

Plot: As Wolverine returns from trying to unlock the secrets to his past, a mutant named Nightcrawler attempts to assassinate the President of the United States. As a response to this, Professor X sends Storm and Jean Grey to find him while he and Cyclops investigate to find out is Magneto is behind it. But unbeknownst to the professor, Colonel Stryker uses the failed assassination to attack the mutant school and kidnap the children there. While most escape, Wolverine, Rouge, Bobby (a.k.a. Iceman) and John (a.k.a. Pyro) attempt to regroup with the other X-men and try to stop Stryker.

Better. Way, way, way, better. The story was much more clever and complex then the first, the action was so much better and they did such a great job with handling the characters. They gave us more development with characters like Storm and Wolverine, and introduced us to some brand new characters. Nightcrawler especially I liked seeing him in this film because of how they gave us how he shows his deep faith in God which as a Christian myself, I really liked about him in the 90's TV show and I'm glad that they went a fair bit into that too. We also went a little more into the romance into Rouge and Iceman as well as a little bit of the relationship between Jean Grey and Wolverine. There are a lot of other X-men characters that get very brief cameos like Kitty Pryde a.k.a. Shadowcat and Colossus who were mostly there just to show their powers to the audience, but I'm actually okay with that because at least by their short appearances, they really helped the audience explore more of the world of X-Men with the different kind of mutant that are in the school, and as far as introducing a franchise that has countless characters, that's a decent way to handle so much of them...unlike some other films. *glares and the Transformers trilogy* But I digress. The story is also much more loyal and deep to the comics, getting us more into the conflict between the X-Men, Magneto, and humans who want to rid the world of mutants like Stryker. And we went more into Wolverine's past. I can only think if one or two things that don't really make sense, but most of them are very minor compared to everything else.

And that's my review for X-Men 2. It was bigger and better with its characters, plot, showing more of the world of X-Men, and altogether is a very enjoyable film that surpasses the first movie with ease. It's a great superhero film that is very enjoyable to watch.