X2 (X-men 2)

Sequels are always a gamble. The chance that you mess up and tarnish the reputation of your predecessor is huge, and in most cases that is...the case I guess. At the same time, there are a number of sequels who not only manages to equal the original, but also surpass it.

The dark knight, Skyfall, The empire strikes back, The godfather part II, Back to the future part II are just a few. X2, or X-men 2, also fall into that category.

X2 is vastly superior over X-men. It feels like the movie Bryan Singer, the director of both 1 and 2, wanted to make from the beginning.
Almost all of the characters have a reason to be on the movie this time. They are less like plot devices and more like real persons this time around, even if some of them are gravely under developed still.
In X2 we actually get to know the characters and by doing that, we care more about them. Rouge and Bobby (the guy who was in two scenes in the first movie) are on a relationship, but how do you...do that?
as Wolverine so elegantly puts it, causes some tension between the two and we get some much needed "un-super" plot in a story filled with way to much spectacular. Jean Grey is having trouble controlling her powers and is worried that as they grow, her powers will take over. We also get some insight into Wolverines origin as a person from his past makes an appearance.
Storm and Cyclops, however iconic they are, still feels like they have no place in the movie. Something that the screenwriters partly acknowledge by writing Cyclops out of the movie for an extended period of time. The action is also vastly improved in this one. More awesome setpieces and some truly spectacular scenes involving the new character called Kurt Wagner, but in the Munich circus he was known as the incredible nightcrawler...

If there was one problem I forgot to mention in my previous review, it was that X-men had too many plots going on at the same time. In X2, there are not as many, and instead we get some character developmemt and a more focused main plot, and evwn if it's still kind of ridiculous at times, it feels a lot more mature this time.

This is not a perfect movie though, not by a long shot. The direction is still way to blunt at times and plot details that the audience coild have easily figured out for them selves gets thrown in our faces over and over. They are minor things but they still made me scoff.

When I sat down to watch this movie, I was almost afraid to press play. Just like with the first X-men I remembered X2 as beomg an awesome flick and one of the better comic book adaptations to date, but I had been so disenfranchised whit the first one that I was wondering if the second one would be as bad.

X2 may not have been as good as I remember, that will probably be a eunning theme here, but it was a hell of a lot better than the first. More action, better characters, better script and over all a sense of more quality. A sense of quality that not many comic book movies have, even today...