The X-Men 2 Movie Experience
By James

I am one of those people who has to watch the trailers before a movie. And at this moment in time, there are around 4-5 movies which I am in absolute desperation to see. Perhaps as a result of this, the most memorable thing that I can remember from going to the cinema to watching X2 yesterday, was the trailer for the Matrix Reloaded.

That trailer absolutely without doubt blew me away. Thankfully I don't have too long to wait for its serious cinematic goodness, as its release is touted for the 15th of May. I doubt that the movie itself will live to the outrageous hype surrounding it, but even so, the stuff I saw in that trailer yesterday ensured that I went home a happy man, in spite of the mediocre nature of the X-Men movie.

The trailer showed some action that quite simply, was just fucking awesome. If you're as Matrix geeky as I am, then you'll probably have scoured reloaded message boards across the net and somehow or another seen some of the screen shots. Before going into my views on X2, I'd just like to establish the fact that these do absolutely no justice to the meteoric bitch-smack that I saw yesterday - there was shit where Morpheus was fighting with a samurai sword with those two white Rastafarians and an un-believable scene where Neo fought like a hundred Agent Smiths.

Check out the new Super Soaker X2 Mini edition!

I have mixed emotions with X-Men 2. With possible the greatest opening sequence I've ever seen in a movie not starring Wesley Snipes and a bunch of vampires, the movie totally stole me over from the start. But somewhere along the way of Nightcrawler's over-used Christian prayers and Pyro's gay one-liners a weak plot emerged, and while reflecting on the movie later with Louis and his brother I realised that the movie I had just seen was simply an amalgamation of shitty dialogue mixed with outstanding fight scenes.

Please note: This does include spoilers, so I recommend you watch the movie before reading this article!

X2 starts off with a freaking awesome intro. Seriously, it was one of the absolutley coolest things I've ever seen in a movie in my life, as Nightcrawler breaks into the Oval Office in the White House and almost kills the President. The first 15 minutes of X2 was undoubtedly the stuff of legends, but quickly, in the very next scene, we returned to regular transmission, and the movie started to cascade into a downward spiral of suck.

I know it was required, but the whole Wolverine scene, where he went looking for the research facility in Alaska was crap in two ways:

• Wolverine has spent his entire life trying to find out about his past, and so when he's finally given a clue as to where everything happened, I highly doubt that he would drive all the way across the country, take one glance, and then drive back home. I do a more thorough search when I look for underwear to match my socks.

• Come on, Wolverine has that whole super-senses thing going on, I'm sure he would be able to smell or hear something, especially as we find out later in the movie that there are hundreds of people working right underneath where he's standing.

Modeling Charles Xavier's impressive Summer Fashion line

I fucking hate Pyro (third from the left). When I saw him on the posters and blowing shit up in the trailers I thought he looked awesome. Then I heard his lines and now I want to stab him in the face with a rake.

Although this came at the end, my biggest issue with X2 was when director Bryan Singer thought it a good idea to butcher the original storyline of the X-Men comics and give Jean Grey the powers of the Phoenix from the second installation of the series. For those who aren't as geeky as I am, Jean is supposed to receive the powers of the Phoenix when (to cut a freaking long story short) the Emkron Crystal is stolen by an intergalactic mad man and the world needs to get it back otherwise a black hole will suck the entire solar system into it.

But hey, the movie can't be all bad, I've got to admit there were some good aspects of X2, namely the fight scenes and the scene when Storm (Halle Berry) comes down the stairs to welcome Wolverine and her nipples are very obviously erect.

I always liked Magneto in the comics. He and Juggernaut were my favourite characters as a child and although I was originally against someone who was old enough to play Gandalf being casted to play him, over the duration of X-Men and X2 I've come to appreciate the wisdom and charisma he gives.

The way in which Magneto escaped from the prison was quality. I don't know who thought that up, but I have to hand it to them, it was some seriously good stuff. Although he did lose an awful lot of cool points for the way in which he floated across the prison looking like Joe Constipated.

I also love the way in which Cyclops utterly disappeared from the movie for a good half hour - 45 minutes as his horrible pants and overall gayness was definitely not missed. Although this did highlight the problem that the X-Men movies past and in the future have/will have - too many characters means that there is so little screen-time for any of them to really shine. Except perhaps Wolverine.

It's a pity because there are so many awesome characters in the X-Men universe, and it means that unless they each take it in turns to 'baby-sit' the kids at Xavier's Mansion, then either we're never going to see any new mutants, or with each movie there will be more mutants, and each will have one or two lines each. Xavier may also need to invest in a new plane.

Finally, Kelly Hu was hot. Although she didn't have a single line to speak of, her appearance on screen was enough. The only problem that I have with her character though, is that since she has something to do with Wolverine's past, perhaps the movie shouldn't have actually shown her die - allowing for her to appear again, if needed.

Bah all in all, it was a good movie experience. The movie left a good taste in my mouth even though when I reflect on it, the storyline itself was very poor. I guess it just goes to show what a few awesome fight sequences and outrageous special effects can do for a movie.

Note: My review may be somewhat biased, seeing as how for the final quarter of the movie (perhaps the most important) I was in a perpetual state of pent up anger, as I'd been holding my piss since half way through the movie, and when I did choose to go and let myself go, I missed the part where Mystique breaks into Stryker's Cerebro, a scene which Louis would subsequently tell me was 'pure ownage' no less than 100000 times.