X2 (movie)
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X2 (promoted in some markets as X2: X-Men United or X-Men 2: X-Men United) is an United States movie, first released in the United Kingdom on April 24, 2003, and in the United States on May 2. The film is a sequel to X-Men. It was directed by Bryan Singer, and starred Patrick Stewart, Hugh Jackman, and Halle Berry.
The film is loosely based on the 1982 X-Men graphic novel God Loves, Man Kills. In the film, William Stryker is a high-ranking army general who leads an assault into Professor Xavier's school to build his own version of Xavier's mutant-hunting computer Cerebro in order to decimate every mutant on Earth. The X-Men are forced to ally with with Magneto and Mystique to defeat Stryker. The film introduced Nightcrawler to film-goers, and was an even greater success than its prequel, earning $214 million in North America alone. It was proclaimed by many fans and critics a superior film than its predecessor.
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Plot
After a devastating attempt on the President's life, and the revelation that a mutant was involved, public pressure to ratify the Mutant Registration Act increases, an act which would force all mutants in the nation to publicly declare themselves mutants and dictate the nature of all of their powers to the federal government.
An attack on Professor Xavier's School for the Gifted (labeled a Mutant training facility by the media), leads to an unlikely alliance with the recently escaped Magneto in a frantic race to stop William Stryker, a military leader with a hatred of mutants, before he can succeed in his plan to destroy all mutants.
Stryker has orchestrated the attack on the President to get official approval for his attack on all mutants. He is able to control mutants with a powerful drug, and gains control over Professor Xavier through Jason, one of the professor's former students, who is able to project powerful visions in the mind, blinding a person to reality. Stryker has created a copy of Professor Xavier's machine Cerebro which, we learn, was invented by then-friends Professor Xavier and Erik Lensherr (Magneto).
In the process, Wolverine learns some of his forgotten past and how his body was enhanced with a superstrong adamantium skeleton. He meets another adamantium-laced foe, Lady Deathstrike, and fights her to protect the other mutants who have been imprisoned in a secret facility by Stryker.
While in the facility, Magneto becomes an enemy again and secretly escapes. In the end, Dr. Jean Grey sacrifices herself to save Professor Xavier and the other X-Men. However, there is evidence she may return, like she did in the comics, as the Phoenix.
The X-Men convinced the President of the truth behind his assassination attempt and persuade him to make a choice: Human- and Mutant-kind working together in peace or destroying each other in a war.
The basic story elements, involving Stryker's plot to use Xavier's powers against all mutants, and the X-Men's resulting alliance with Magneto, are loosely adapted from the graphic novel God Loves, Man Kills by Chris Claremont. In that story, Stryker has a military background, but is currently a religious leader whose wife gave birth to an obviously mutant infant. In a fit of rage, he killed them both and decided that he had been chosen by God to destroy mutants. In the film, his military background is moved to the foreground, and the religious aspect of the character is eliminated. Instead of killing his wife and son in childbirth, the Stryker of the film sends his son (loosely based on the character Mastermind from the comics) to Xavier to be cured of his mutation. Unable to change his mutation, and resentful of his parents, he began tormenting his mother by projecting nightmarish images into her brain, causing her to commit suicide by drilling a hole into her head. Stryker responded by giving his son a lobotomy, and extracting his brain fluid, which he now uses to control other mutants.
Main cast
- Wolverine / Logan .... Hugh Jackman
- Professor Charles Xavier .... Patrick Stewart
- Storm / Ororo Munroe .... Halle Berry
- Jean Grey .... Famke Janssen
- Cyclops / Scott Summers .... James Marsden
- Nightcrawler / Kurt Wagner .... Alan Cumming
- Rogue / Marie .... Anna Paquin
- Iceman / Bobby Drake .... Shawn Ashmore
- Pyro / John Allerdyce .... Aaron Stanford
- Magneto / Eric Lensherr .... Ian McKellen
- William Stryker .... Brian Cox
- Mystique .... Rebecca Romijn-Stamos
- Deathstrike / Yuriko Oyama .... Kelly Hu
- Senator Kelly .... Bruce Davison
Differences From Comic
Longtime fans of the X-Men title will recognize that some liberties have been taken with the X-Men characters. While the movie need not follow all the conventions of the comic, they are interesting to note.
- Nightcrawler's blue fur has been replaced by skin of the same color covered in self-inflicted angelic glyph tattoos.
- Iceman appears as a teenager and appears much younger than many of the other X-Men. In the comics, Iceman was one of the original X-Men. He appeared and left many years before The 80's X-Men like Rogue, Storm, and Wolverine. If he were around at all, he would appear closer to Jean Grey's age.
- At no time were there ever so many mutants at the manor and there have never been very young children attending classes at the manor. As new mutants showed up, older X-Men would leave. They would join other groups such as, in the case of Beast, the Avengers. Even the new mutants, though, were never as young as many of the children in the movie.
- Colossus is in this movie but has only a very small part and is not part of the X-Men team, only an older student of the academy. While young in age when he began with the X-Men, he was a full-fledged member from the beginning in the comics.