The end of the first X-Men movie left audiences craving answers. What was the story behind John Logan’s (a.k.a Wolverine) past? Would Mystique continue to pose as a United States senator? Would they really be able to keep Magneto locked away for the rest of his natural life?
This film answered all of these questions, and they did it with a fantastic story and continued to provide great special effects. The film opens with a shocking attack in the White House. A mutant, later to be discovered as Nightcrawler, is able to use teleporting abilities to breach the security perimeter around the President, and he comes within mere inches of killing the commander-in-chief.
This is where the movie switches up, and the audience gets to see Wolverine wandering around in the mountains. He stumbles onto what seems to be an abandoned military complex, and this is just the beginning of the foreshadowing the film provides.
This leads back to the debate of requiring mutants to register, and the audience is introduced to a military scientist/specialist named Stryker. The man seems to have to covert information on a certain school that is housing mutants, and he wants the president to authorize him to sweep the establishment for potential mutant threats.
During Stryker’s scene with the president, Mystique appears as the senator and she discovers where Magneto is. So Mystique is still pulling her copycat routine, and later she uses it to find out the secrets that Stryker and his assistant Lady Deathstrike are keeping.
As the movie progresses, there are more characters that are introduced and the story behind Cerebro is further explored. The audience finds out why Stryker hates mutants so much, they get to see the full extent of Wolverine’s rage and Professor Xavier’s compassion.
The film even takes time to insert romance, as seen between the young Rogue and Iceman as well as the continued love between Jean Grey and Cyclops.
The second film leaves the audience craving yet another one, and there is even hope that the series will continue to build on the different mutant stories that exist. What will happen with Pyro? Will Phoenix be introduced? Who was that metallic man seen during the raid on the school? Will Bryan Singer be back to direct a third installment of X-Men?
There are so many questions to be answered as the franchise grows, and with the DVD they offer lots of goodies in the form of bonus material. There is commentary, a making-of documentary, 11 featurettes, an interactive multi-angle scene study, 11 deleted/extended scenes, 26 still galleries and three theatrical trailers.
Grade: A (movie) A (disc)
