Bryan Singer's 2003 follow-up takes everything that worked in the original and deepens it, expanding the franchise's world with a confidence and an ambition that the first film's more cautious approach could not have achieved. The Nightcrawler White House sequence alone announces that this is a different order of filmmaking, and the film sustains that level of invention across its entire runtime.
At a Glance
Director: Bryan Singer
Runtime: 134 minutes
Starring: Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, Halle Berry, Famke Janssen, James Marsden, Alan Cumming, Brian Cox
Release: 2003
Critics Rating: ★★★★½ (4.5/5 stars, the Fox X-Men series at its creative peak)
Audience Rating: ★★★★½ (4.5/5 stars, the franchise's high point)
Review Breakdown
Plot
When a mutant assassin attempts to kill the President of the United States, the resulting political backlash gives William Stryker the justification he needs to launch an assault on Xavier's school. The attack forces the X-Men and Magneto's Brotherhood into an uneasy alliance against a common enemy. The plot is the franchise's most coherent and most dramatically satisfying, with a clear through-line and a genuine sense of escalating stakes. The alliance between the X-Men and Magneto is the film's most interesting dramatic development, handled with enough intelligence to make both sides feel principled. The climax, set in Alkali Lake, is the franchise's most emotionally harrowing to this point.
Characters
The ensemble is given more to do here than in the original. Wolverine's investigation into his own past gives the film its most personal dramatic thread, and Jackman plays the character's anger and vulnerability with a depth and conviction the original only hinted at. Alan Cumming's Nightcrawler is the film's most valuable new addition, a character of warmth and faith whose opening sequence is a masterclass in action filmmaking, establishing character and ability simultaneously while delivering a set-piece of genuine visual invention. Brian Cox's William Stryker is the franchise's most compelling human villain, a man of real intelligence and menace. Famke Janssen's Jean Grey is given the franchise's most significant character development, with the suggestion of the Phoenix force handled with a restraint and a mystery that the subsequent film would not honour. Stewart and McKellen are as authoritative as ever, and Halle Berry's Storm is given more to do than in the original, though the character remains less fully realised than her prominence suggests she should be.
Tone
Singer maintains the serious, grounded register of the original while pushing the scale and the ambition further. John Ottman's score builds on the themes of the first film with a richness and a dramatic purpose that gives X2 a sonic identity as distinctive as its visual one. The film's darker register gives it a weight and a consequence that the original's more cautious approach did not attempt, and the action sequences demonstrate what the franchise is capable of when budget and ambition are properly aligned.
Meaning / Themes
The film deepens the original's exploration of prejudice and the politics of difference. The forced outing metaphor, in which Bobby Drake's parents react to the discovery of his mutant status with denial and recrimination, is the franchise's most direct and most affecting use of the mutant allegory, a scene that gives the film's broader political concerns a human scale and an emotional specificity that the first film only approached.
Direction
Singer's direction is the strongest of his work in the franchise. The Nightcrawler White House sequence is among the most inventive pieces of action filmmaking in the genre's history, and the climax at Alkali Lake is handled with an emotional precision that makes its losses land with real force. The film's pacing is assured throughout, and Singer gives his actors the space to develop their characters with a patience that blockbuster filmmaking rarely permits.
Cultural Reception
X2 received outstanding reviews on its release and was a major commercial success, significantly outperforming its predecessor at the box office. Critics praised the expanded ensemble, the Nightcrawler opening sequence, and Singer's confident direction, and it is now regarded as the benchmark for the Fox X-Men series and one of the most accomplished superhero sequels ever made. The forced outing scene is consistently cited as one of the most intelligent uses of the mutant metaphor in the series' history. The film set a creative standard that the franchise would spend the next decade attempting to match.
Final Verdict: The finest film in the Fox X-Men series and one of the great superhero sequels. Singer expands the franchise's world with real confidence, the ensemble is given the depth and complexity the original only gestured toward, and the Nightcrawler opening is a piece of action filmmaking that the genre has rarely bettered. The climax is devastating, the character work is exceptional throughout, and the film sets a standard the franchise would never again match.