A good parable of alienation

Film review: X-Men 2

My wife and I were discussing which mutant powers we’d like to possess on the ride home after watching X2, the sequel to Bryan Singer’s 2000 X-Men. She opted for psychokinetic powers, because these would allow her to make objects come to her, instead of the other way around. I thought about it for a second, as another bus tried to veer sharply into my lane along EDSA. No contest. Wolverine’s claws, I said. Very useful for puncturing bus tires.

I’m no huge X-Men fan, but I liked this sequel, though it was slightly inferior to the original. As Hollywood comic book franchises go, it has a sharp visual sheen, plus the prospect of unleashing unlimited power in a battle between Good (the misunderstood mutant misfits) and Evil (those who plot to destroy the mutants, or humans, or both). There’s a simple yet powerful theme of discrimination underlying X-Men – against teenagers, against those with physical disabilities, against anyone who’s different – that’s pretty easy to get behind. I’m sure this message was present in the original Marvel Comics X-Men, too.

And for those not interested in themes or messages, there are lots of action sequences to watch in X2. Having introduced Dr. Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart, bald and wheelchaired), the benevolent schoolmaster at an academy for mutant children, as well as Wolverine (Hugh Jackman in outrageous sideburns), Rogue (Anna Paquin), Storm (Halle Berry) and the others in the first movie, new characters include Pyro, a firebug whose allegiance to good is shaky; Iceman, who – duh – freezes things; and Nightcrawler (Allan Cumming), who wears purple makeup and tattoos, and spouts German liturgies.

The baddie this time around is a scientist named Stryker (Brian Cox) who wants to use Xavier’s psychic link to all other mutants to eliminate them. Stryker uses his own mutant son’s cerebrospinal fluid to control the wills of the X-Men, which allows him to suck some information from the mind of Magneto (Ian McKellan), last seen imprisoned in a high-tech plastic jail cell (since he can manipulate all metals, Magneto’s safer in a plastic environment).

Along the way, Wolverine discovers something about his past, reignites a romantic interest in mutant Jean (Famke Jenssen), who is unfortunately still into Scott – another mutant whose laser eyes earn him the nickname "Cyclops."

This all sounds very silly, and it probably is, but the action moves along at a good pace, including the blowing up of a dozen police cruisers using Pyro’s self-explanatory skills, and a blockbuster escape from the mutant’s campus after it is besieged by Stryker’s paramilitary forces.

However, there were a couple moments in X2 that left even casual X-Men viewers smirking. Like, if the mutants are supposed to be so sensitive to physical differences and disabilities, why did they leave Stryker’s son, Jason, trapped in a wheelchair and dribbling cerebro-spinal fluid as a monstrous tidal wave consumed the arctic base? Not too politically correct there; not even a wheelchair access ramp for poor old Jason.

And why did Jean have to climb outside the X-Men’s snazzy jet to part the ocean waves, thus saving her pals inside? Wouldn’t her powers have worked just as well from within the plane? And why are they called "X-Men," anyway, when half the cast are female? Again, not too politically correct.

And then there’s Nightcrawler. Despite being an important original character in the X-Men comic books, he makes for a pretty laughable superhero. Sputtering on about his days "in the Berlin circus" in a thick German accent, Cumming comes across more as a vaudeville act than a strong team player. And since the X-Men posse keeps expanding, it may be time to start considering which members to "X" out by the end of the next sequel.

On the other hand, McKellan has a jolly gay old time camping it up as Magneto, leering menacingly and trading bitchy quips with Mystique (a nakedly blue Rebecca Romijn-Stamos), his fag-hag shape-shifter companion. Their act alone is worth the price of admission.

There is room for improvement in the next sequel, but all in all, X-Men looks to be one of the more enduring Hollywood comic book franchises out there. The Batman series was badly run into the ground by director Joel Schumacher (though it’s set to be reinvented in a new "Dark Knight" incarnation); the long-promised Superman rebirth (starring Nicolas Cage) never took off; and though Sam Raimi’s Spiderman seemed to have the right comic-book sensibility, it was a bit too CGI-dependent. As directed by Singer, the X-Men movies tap into the heart of comic-book appeal: characters who, despite their strange powers, are sympathetic and ultimately human. There’s an underlying sadness to their plight, trapped in a world that doesn‘t understand them, that in fact fears them and tries to eliminate them at every turn. It’s a good parable of alienation, and unlike other sterile comic book ventures (Daredevil springs to mind), X2 at least feels like it was made by a fan.