Comic Book Rewind

My last rewatch was the original release of X-men released in 2000, well the sequel was released in 2003 and continued the story we were introduced to as well as introducing new characters. The sequel retained the same screenwriting team allowing (hopefully) for consistency and cohesiveness. I enjoyed the first one overall but let's see how the second one holds up….

The first real scene of intrigue is the second one, Logan finding and entering the industrial facility. Hugh Jackman just plays it super well, and you can see the confusion and consternation on his face. The museum scene with Jean is also very well done as you can start to see the extent of her powers and what happens when she doesn’t know what to do with them.

Bobby is a teenage boy, I get it but he really gets into a pissing contest with every dude that looks at Rogue. He really feels the need to try and assert dominance over Logan which is so so stupid. I can understand why they did what they did to Bobby and Rogue’s characters at least for the sake of adaptation but it really does strip something from the characters.

I love that they didn’t just drop the idea of Logan needing to know what happened to him. But what these scenes also do is establish the relationship between Logan and Professor X, Logan really is just broken and lost and thinks that finding out what happened to him will help him find himself. Xavier is simply trying to save him.

And then we have Raven’s love for Erik, she does absolutely everything he can to find and save him. Which not only furthers the establishment of their relationship but humanizes her in a way that is very necessary.

Why did we change Halle Berry’s hair in every damn one of these movies?

Logan seems to be remembering more about what happened to him and it really just seems to confuse him more. His nightmare leads him and Bobby to have a little bonding moment, which only seems a little weird because of their last interaction in which Bobby was an ass and Logan didn’t notice or care.

Some background is given to Striker’s relationship with Xavier, this scene also exemplifies the hypocrisy of the government; Striker seems to be anti-mutant but one works for him and the reality is he only wants to use them for military purposes. They're only considered not dangerous if he can control them.

In the raid on the school Logan also finds out that Striker was behind the experimentation on him. Striker is saved from Logan only by Rogue’s pleas for him to come with them.

Also I know films like this are about suspension of belief but there is no military technology real or imagined that would be strong or smart enough to break through one of the strongest telepaths security systems for one of his most valuable assets.

My husband and I have decided that Ian Mckellen just makes it too damn difficult to not like Magneto. He’s just such a compelling actor and a delightful person that not being on Magneto’s side seems wrong.

I love the introduction of Nightcrawler, he balances Storm and offers yet another perspective in how mutants view themselves and the world around them.

Erik saves the X-jet full of kids, Storm, Nightcrawler, Jean and Logan and he warns them about Striker and Cerebro. Now this is obviously an act of self preservation as he doesn’t want to die, but I really believe that it's also an act of friendship in wanting to save Xavier.

The scene between Logan and Jean about her feelings for Scott just before he kisses her is so beautifully accurate to their characters and I really appreciate it, it's a detail that is very necessary for the development of their characters and for the sake of comic book accuracy, it's amazing.

I do enjoy that the throughlines of this movie for not only the plot but for each individual character motivation was consistent, and not only within the self contained story but in congruence with the first film.

The CGI is aggressively 2000s and truly not good, but the movie itself is enjoyable and well done enough to overlook it.

They for some reason have the lab they experimented on Wolverine in and it's in the exact same set up with bubbling adamantium for some reason? Are we supposed to pretend that this makes any kind of sense? Also their adaptation of Lady Deathstrike makes me want to cry. It's so, so terrible.

Striker basically tells Logan that he was a terrible person anyway and all the experiment did was make him more dangerous, now I never saw Wolverine: Origins so I am going to have to just to see how accurate it was to what was already canonically laid out in these movies.

Overall the movie was good, not the best comic book movie and not the worst either. I know the Last Stand is the one that got the most flack so I look forward to seeing what I think about it, as I, of course, remember nothing.