While Bryan Singer‘s X-Men arguably helped usher in the modern era of superhero movies, it was only considered a modest success by comic book fans. While everyone was blown away by Hugh Jackman as Wolverine, people pointed at the Matrix-inspired fight scenes, the score and costumes (particularly Storm’s wig) as things they didn’t like. The film was so successful that for the sequel, X2: X-Men United, Singer was given a bigger budget and much more freedom to make the X-Men epic he always dreamed of. The result is a movie many still consider the best of the X-Men saga, although, sadly, the teased “Dark Phoenix” follow-up would fall to a different director and result in perhaps the worst film of the series. But the X-Men were riding high for one brief shining moment in 2003.
The movie contains many signature X-Men moments, beginning with Nightcrawler’s (Alan Cummings) introduction and White House assault and ending with Wolverine’s fight with Kelly Hu’s Lady Deathstrike. Patrick Stweart, James Marsden, Famke Janssen, Anna Paquin and Halle Berry are all at their best, and Ian McKellen’s role as Magneto is even better than it was in the first film. And then there’s also Brian Cox as Stryker, the underrated Aaron Standford as Pyro, John Ottman’s score, and so much more. While Singer’s place in movie history will also be clouded and controversial, it can’t be denied that X2 is one heck of a great X-Men movie, so let’s take a look back at Bryan Singer’s X2 in this episode of Marvel Revisited (written, narrated, edited by Kier Gomes).
What do you think is the best X-Men movie? Let us know in the comments.