Professor Popinjay's Compendium of Perspicacity

A Non-review by Professor Popinjay

(2003)

Already starting to become Wolverine-centric, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing yet. Don’t get me wrong, Logan (2017) was great but the trek getting there was a bit rough.

After they (gnomes) realized origin films for other characters would never sell as well as Wolverine, I think their decision to go back to doing team films was a good choice. I know I’m getting ahead of myself but this is one of the aspects I like about these three films. The team aspect is strong and we get to learn about the individual characters as we go along. So long as it’s not overwhelming with too many character’s storylines bogging down the flow (I’m looking at you Pirates of the Caribbean franchise) it goes pretty well.

X-2 even introduces some new characters and still doesn’t feel boggy. Alan Cumming as Nightcrawler was great. It was awesome to hear his German accent again so long after “Cabaret.”

Probably my favorite actor in this was Bryan Cox but not as William Stryker. Rather, I thought he was great as Mystique when she morphed into William Striker. It’s a bit confusing but several actors played Mystique because she had the ability to morph her appearance to mimic that of others. I’m sure I’m preaching to the choir here but I want to be clear for anyone who hasn’t seen it.

Rather than cover Rebecca Romijn with prosthetics and gobs of spirit gum to make her look like Bryan Cox, the make-up department found it far less time consuming to simply replace Rebecca Romijn with the actual Bryan Cox who conveniently wakes up every morning already looking like Brian Cox. It was then up to Brian Cox to act like Rebecca Romijn acting like Mystique mimicking William Striker.

Jennifer Lawrence, who would play Mystique in the later films, was particularly appreciative of this technique when it came time for her to masquerade as Peter Dinklage’s character. As Peter Dinklage is roughly half a Dinklage shorter than her, I shudder to think what the alternative would have been.

X-2 had good guys and bad guys working together. I always appreciate that dynamic. It brings out interesting characteristics like mistrust and reluctance. If Peter Jackson has taught us anything, mistrust and reluctance is how you make anything interesting!

I thoroughly enjoyed this film from start to finish.