X2: X-Men United (2003) ****/*****

With X2 the X-Men franchise really got cooking. Gone were the budgetary, scheduling, and content restraints that Bryan Singer had to face in the first film. The focus was put firmly on Hugh Jackman and Ian McKellan, who both killed it as Wolverine and Magneto in the original. Lines between good guys and bad guys were blurred, characters were fleshed out, and the action sequences really delivered. The opening attack on the White House by Nightcrawler, the assault on Xavier’s mansion by Stryker’s men, the mid air dog fight between the Blackbird and government jets; they all represent blockbuster movie mayhem in their highest forms. Plus, the character moments were just unparalleled. We got to see Wolverine give in to berzerker rage and murder people, we got to watch Magneto manipulate insecurities to convert troubled youth to his cause, and we got to watch Cyclops make poo-poo face whenever anything dramatic happened.

Okay, so James Marsden is a really bad dramatic actor, but he doesn’t sink the whole production. When the end of this film pointed toward a big screen adaptation of “The Phoenix Saga” I was so pumped for X3. If the momentum of this sequel carried over into that classic storyline, then the X-Men trilogy could have really been something special. Shame what happened there.