Patrick Stewart, Anna Paquin, James Marsden, Shawn Ashmore, Famke Janssen, Halle Berry and Hugh Jackman re-team for X2. All photos ™ & © 2003 Twentieth Century Fox. Unless noted otherwise, photo credit: Kerry Hayes/SMPSP.

X2: X-Men United is a fun ride. If only it was more…what’s the word I’m looking for…? Oh, yes. United! The movie has so many terrific elements, I just wish they’d been able to put the parts together better at the story’s end.

Some Great Stuff
X2, of course, is the sequel to the hugely popular X-Men, and both chronicle the philosophical and physical battles between Marvel Comics’ two extreme camps of superhuman mutants, with plain ol’ mankind caught — less and less passively — in between. While X2 isn’t as novel as X-Men, as moving as Spider-Man (or as flawed as Daredevil), it has more than its fair share of cool stuff. For example:

• A knock-your-socks off, how’d-they-do-that opening introducing Nightcrawler;
   
• A great raid-on-the-X-Mansion scene, where Wolverine shows just how unique his powers are — and just how savage he can be;

X2 introduces Alan Cumming as Nightcrawler in a spectacular way.

• An even better suburban siege where the heroes actually have to face off against “a world that hates and fears them” — and where Pyro, Rogue, and, of course, Wolverine, show how dangerous it can be to be a mutant — and a mutant hater;
   
• A Magneto escape scene which, alone, is worth the price of admission (Sorry if I ruined it for you. He escapes. Get over it.);
   
• The nifty cameos by characters only diehard X-Fans would know, as well as script references for the same aficionados;
   
• The “do-or-die” climax wherein a major character undergoes a… significant change. It was dramatic and exciting and pretty much defined the “can’t/must” choices that superheroes always have to make. (“I can’t do that — but I must do that! What do I do?”)