The best way to describe X2: X-Men United is it's a bigger, better, badder improvement over the original X-Men movie. All of the X-Men return, as well as Magneto and Mystique. Debuting are Nightcrawler, Pyro, Lady Deathstrike, and William Stryker, all of which expand and enrich upon the world in which the movie versions of the X-Men live in.

Heavily influenced by Chris Claremont and Brent Anderson's classic X-Men: God Loves, Man Kills graphic novel, the story for X2 is very different from the first movie as the X-Men are now forced to work together with Magneto for the better good. The story for X2 is basically the beginning of the war between mutants and humans, escalated by Colonel William Stryker, the villain of the movie. Long time readers of the X-Men comics will recognize him as an adaptation of the Reverend William Stryker character from X-Men: God Loves, Man Kills, the leader of a massive anti-mutant crusade. In fact, Kelly Hu's character was originally supposed to be Anne Reynolds, another character from the graphic novel, rather than Lady Deathstrike.

X2 is set a few months after the first movie, opening with Nightcrawler attempting to assassinate the president of the United States, sparking the latest bout of anti-mutant paranoia allowing William Stryker to launch his campaign against Charles Xavier and the rest of mutantkind. Meanwhile, Mystique continues to impersonate Senator Robert Kelly while Magneto rots away in his plastic prison. Storm and Jean Grey are dispatched to Boston to locate Nightcrawler, while Xavier and Cyclops are pay a visit to Magneto, leaving the just returned Wolverine to babysit the younger students in the school. Taking advantage of this, Stryker has Xavier and Cyclops ambushed and taken captive and a para-military assault team lays siege to the school with Wolverine being the only defence against the soldiers.

Wolverine, Rogue, Iceman, and Pyro go on the run and would eventually meet up with Jean Grey and Storm in Boston, culminating in an exciting dogfight between the X-Jet and two fighter jets. When Stryker's plan is uncovered by Mystique with the construction of a second Cerebro to have the mind-controlled Xavier kill every single mutant on Earth, the X-Men converge on the Weapon X facility in Canada to rescue Xavier and stop Stryker. As a side note, it has to be pointed out that the Cerebro built by Stryker is an homage to the mutant killing psi-scan device used in God Loves, Man Kills.

One of the major complaints I had regarding the first movie is that it ended way too quickly and this has been rectified here. With a running length of 133 minutes, X2 is wholly satisfying and more substantial in nature. The story is darker and more desperate in tone because this very select minority is being openly persecuted by the United States military and law enforcement itself, essentially an overwhelming "them against you" scenario.

Again the focus falls mainly upon Wolverine, but it's nice to see Halle Berry and Famke Janssen, who play Storm and Jean Grey respectively, have more to do in X2 compared to their minimal participation in the first movie. The students in Xavier's school has also been expanded upon with Daniel Cudmore reprising his role as Colossus, as well as Jubilee and Shadowcat returning as well. And although they're never named, comic book fans will notice Siryn, Taki the Wiz Kid, and Artie Maddox making cameos as well, along with the the quick flashes of text scrolling on the computer screens in Lady Deathstrike's office. Also, the character of Jason Stryker is an obvious homage to Jason Wyngarde a.k.a. Mastermind.

If there is one character that has grown, it's Jean Grey. It's highly doubtful that the screenwriters Zak Penn, David Hayter, and Bryan Singer was influenced by what Grant Morrison did to Jean Grey with the blossoming of the Phoenix Force within her, but it's touched upon in this movie as well. Again, this is something that long time fans will appreciate, setting the story direction for the inevitable sequel.

Alan Cumming puts in a fantastic performance as the tortured Nightcrawler, easily sending the feeling to the audience that this is a someone who is deeply religious but has great trouble reconciling with the fact that he looks like the devil. Newcomers Shawn Ashmore and Aaron Stanford, who play Iceman and Pyro respectively, also turn in good performances. Unfortunately, Cyclops' role has been greatly reduced with little for James Marsden to do while Kelly Hu had nothing to do apart from snarl and looking beautiful and dangerous.

From a technical standpoint, X2 is absolutely amazing! One of the highlights of the movie is the opening sequence as Nightcrawler invades the White House teleporting in and out from one location to another on his way to the Oval Office. The visual effects crew led by Michael Fink really delivered with the highly convincing recreation of Nightcrawler's signature "bamf" effect, employing CGI smoke rushing in to fill a vacuum mixed with an implosive audio clip. Another highlight is Magneto's escape from his plastic prison, with Magneto pulling the iron out of a security guard's body (highly reminiscent of what Magneto did to Wolverine in X-Men # 25) creating three tiny metal balls destroying his cage within seconds.

The 2.40:1 anamorphic widescreen video is absolutely pristine, and most impressive of all there is no hint of any colour bleeding whatsoever during the Cerebro scenes which was totally drowned in red, but every single detail on Patrick Stewart's face is still clearly visible. The DTS 5.1 audio track is very aggressive, giving all speakers a heavy workout with no distortion at all and without an overpowering low frequency response, something that afflicts DTS audio tracks on many other DVDs. John Ottman's score for X2 picks up some of the aural queues established by the late Michael Kamen for the first movie but adds and improves upon it, very much more dramatic and it's fun to see each of the lead characters given short signature leitmotifs.

The X2 DVD menu interface is designed to complement the design used in X-Men 1.5. Unfortunately, the silkscreen design of the disc itself feature nothing but boring portraits of Wolverine and Lady Deathstrike for the Region 1 discs, unlike the cool X logo found on the Region 3 version that better complements the X-Men 1.5 discs. The special features are designed with the same design sensibilities as well, but is the look at the creation of the movie is nowhere near as comprehensive as in X-Men 1.5. The deleted scenes offer nothing new, but the still galleries are very interesting revealing character designs done for Angel and the Sentinels that were not used for the movie, as well as the extensive graphic design work done for the museum scene early on in the movie.

The only significant improvement over the X-Men 1.5 special features is the inclusion of two brief featurettes celebrating the comic book origins of the X-Men, featuring interviews with Stan Lee and Chris Claremont discussing the reactions to the movies as well as the origins of the X-Men comic, and another focusing on the development of Nightcrawler's character with Chuck Austen. Interesting material, even though it's not as detailed or in depth as the interviews found on the Daredevil or Spider-Man DVDs.

Overall, despite my dissatisfaction with the special features on the second disc, X2: X-Men United is a great DVD and is a great demo disc to show off one's home theatre system. This is one of those rare sequels that is better than the first in all respects and the conclusion of the movie has left me hungering for the next movie.