X-Men X2
Language : English / German
Year of release : 2003
Run time : 2h14m
Genre : Sci Fi / Action
Cast : Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart, James Marsden, Famke Janssen, Brian Cox, Halle Berry, Anna Paquin, Ian McKellen, Rebecca Romijn, Kelly Hu, Alan Cumming
The second installment of the X-Men trilogy, is based on the Marvel Comics superhero team “The X-Men” written by Stan Lee and illustrated by artist Jack Kirby, first published in 1963.
Nightcrawler teleports to the White House and attacks the president, almost k1lling him, when he’s sh0t by one of the Secret Service agents, and teleports out of there.
Wolverine goes to Alkali Lake hoping he can remember his past, but the industrial complex is destroyed.
Storm, Jean and Cyclops are with their students on a school trip. A guy asks Pyro for a light, but he refuses to help him, which leads to a fight Professor X must stop with his abilities.
Jean hasn’t been feeling like herself lately, and Cyclops mentions the bedroom shakes when she has a nightmare.
Colonel William Stryker talks to the president and senator Kelly, impersonated now by Mystique.
Stryker tells the president professor X’s school for the gifted is dangerous. The president gives him permission to enter the facility looking for the weapons Stryker said they have.
Hearing Stryker has access to Eric / Magneto, Mystique disguised as senator Kelly is trying to persuade him to let her / him see Eric, but Stryker refuses.
Wolverine / Logan comes back, and Storm asks him to watch over the students at the academy , as they’re going to Boston, for they’re tracking Nightcrawler.
Stryker is visiting Eric in prison for some time now, as he uses a drug (which he pours at the back of his neck on a scar) on him which breaks his will and makes him tell him everything he wants to know. Now he wants to know about Cerebro, professor X’s device to locate mutants and humans.
Mystique breaks into Stryker’s facility disguised as Yukiro Oyama aka Lady Deathstrike, and gets the information on where Eric is.
Storm and Jean find the Nightcrawler in a church, and take him with them. He has the same mark at the back of his neck Eric has from having the substance poured onto it, to be mind controlled.
Wolverine can’t sleep, and going into the kitchen he finds Iceman there, eating. Good thing they are awake, as that’s when Stryker and his men descend upon the academy, sho0ting the kids who wake up with darts which knocks them unconscious.
Wolverine, Iceman and Rogue save as many kids as possible, and let them leave with Colossus through a hidden tunnel, as Wolverine sees Stryker who says he knows him.
Rogue doesn’t want to leave Wolverine with Stryker so Iceman makes a wall of ice in between the two, while Rogue asks him to leave with them.
They head for Boston, and end up at Iceman’s parents’ place.
At the same time professor X and Cyclops visit Eric, who tells the professor Stryker has been visiting him forcing him to tell him everything. Just then, Stryker’s team attacks them.
Mystique finds the police guard assigned to Eric, and pretends to like him posing as a beautiful woman. She drugs him and injects him with iron.
When he is in Eric’s presence, Eric senses the iron in his blood, gets it out of him, and breaks out of prison.
Things don’t go well at Iceman’s parents’ place, as he tells them he’s a mutant, and his brother calls the police on them.
Storm and Jean get to them right when Pyro was fighting with the police, after they shot Wolverine.
The military tracks the academy’s jet, and fires at it. Jean manages to destroy one missile with her mind, but the second hits the craft.
Eric saves them by stopping the jet from falling.
This one time, they unite to save the mutants held captive by Stryker.
Speaking of Stryker, he hates mutans as his son is one, and he blames him for his wife’s death. He has a few mutants under his rule, as he controls them with the serum secreted by his son, as he has professor X’s gift.
He also controls his son, by making him control professor X to target all mutants and k1ll them.
This was one of my favorite movies 20 years ago, I have it on original videotape, and watching it last night, I was surprised I knew the lines. My favorite character at the time was Lady Deathstrike.I loved the fighting scenes that she appears in, and the one with Jean SPOILER sacrificing herself. END OF SPOILER
Rogue is dating Iceman, but they can’t actually be together for she’ll k1ll him if she kisses him or touches him without gloves.
Wolverine is in love with Jean, but Jean loves Cyclops, and is trying to let him down easy.
Pyro seems to be ready to switch teams seeing how humans treat mutants.
Mystique and Eric have an unbreakable bond.
I liked the costumes. I wished Storm had her animation costume / look, and had more air time.
The acting was good.
The soundtrack was good.
The visual effects were amazing. I also liked the make-up and prosthetics used to create Nightcrawler and Mystique’s appearances.
The movie grossed 407.7 million dollars at the box office, against a production budget of around 125 million dollars, being the 9th highest grossing movie of the year 2003.
Cinema Score audiences graded the movie an A. IMDB graded it a 7.4 out of 10.
The movie was nominated for 8 Saturn Awards, winning the award for Best Science Fiction Film.
You can watch the full movie for free on the Ok.Ru platform, in English or dubbed in other languages like Russian.
Rating : Worth a watch !