X-Men 2--sorry, X2--is one of the worst movies I've ever sat through, if not the worst.
Singer does a lousy job on X2. It looks like it was filmed in Canada on a restricted budget; it looks goofy and cheap. The story is idiotic and the script is terrible. There's no good split between the characters in terms of screen time. Patrick Stewart disappears for a while, so does James Marsden.
There's one scene with promise--when Hugh Jackman is talking with Shawn Ashmore and it's an awkward moment. It doesn't really fulfill any of that promise, but it's not as bad as most of the film.
There aren't any good performances, which is disappointing if not surprising. Ashmore gives one of the better performances. Bruce Davison's all right. As opposed to the first one, Jackman's not good in this one. Patrick Stewart's bad. Halle Berry's bad. Famke Janssen's less bad than those two, but still bad. Ian McKellan's not as bad as he was in the first one, but he's still lousy. Anna Paquin's no good. Brian Cox is awful. Alan Cumming is awful. Cotter Smith plays the President--he exudes a Canadian production.
There is the one amazing scene where Wolverine kills all the army guys--the U.S. Army is the bad guy in X2. They're child killers. This movie's from 2003, demonizing the U.S. Army, which is kind of ballsy. It's a gratuitous scene and its presence in a huge Hollywood blockbuster is startling. It's great.
CREDITS
Directed by Bryan Singer; screenplay by Michael Dougherty, Dan Harris and David Hayter, based on a story by Zak Penn, Hayter and Singer; director of photography, Newton Thomas Sigel; edited by John Ottman and Elliot Graham; music by Ottman; production designer, Guy Dyas; produced by Lauren Shuler Donner and Ralph Winter; released by 20th Century Fox.
Starring Patrick Stewart (Professor Charles Xavier), Hugh Jackman (Logan / Wolverine), Ian McKellen (Eric Lensherr / Magneto), Halle Berry (Storm / Ororo Munroe), Famke Janssen (Jean Grey), James Marsden (Scott Summers / Cyclops), Anna Paquin (Rogue / Marie D'Ancanto), Rebecca Romijn (Mystique / Grace), Brian Cox (William Stryker), Alan Cumming (Kurt Wagner / Nightcrawler), Bruce Davison (Senator Kelly), Aaron Stanford (John Allerdyce / Pyro), Shawn Ashmore (Bobby Drake / Iceman), Kelly Hu (Yuriko Oyama / Deathstrike), Katie Stuart (Kitty Pryde), Kea Wong (Jubilee) and Cotter Smith (President McKenna).
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monoceros4 // Nov 24, 2009 at 9:20 pm
Brian Cox is bad? Are you kidding? He’s about the only thing I remember from the movie. Well, aside from the fact that Ian McKellen’s Magneto squanders whatever dignity he had left from the first movie to say things like, “Like what you did with your hair,” or whatever it was.