Willow
ELChica
X Men 2.... about the bits I've put in italics Mwahahahaha! I'm very much into a wolverine rogue ship...and this has given me a glimmer of hope. It could all be total BS but you never really know...
MORIARTY: So I get inside and I open the envelope, and there's X-MEN 2. Clean. Just came out of a copier somewhere. 109 pages, with "PRODUCTION DRAFT 4-30-02" on the title page. It's credited to David Hayter, with a story by David Hayter and Bryan Singer, and current revisions by Michael Dougherty & Dan Harris. By now, we're all fairly familiar with the stories about Zak Penn and David Hayter developing separate drafts of the scripts, almost like a competition, with the studio eventually choosing what they felt was the stronger of the two ideas, picking the bones of the other if there was anything worthwhile. I thought it sounded like a terrible way to develop a sequel, and I was particularly discouraged by the idea that Tom DeSanto wasn't involved, considering how important his input was on the first film.Well, get ready, because X-MEN 2 is poised to take the winning streak of Marvel Films to a whole new level. It's smart, fast-paced, filled with page after page of superhero action that we've never seen onscreen before, and it manages to not only introduce new characters successfully, but also fleshes out the mythology of the world and the characters we already met in a deeply satisfying way.
First things first: forget what you think you know about the film, this is a story that picks up right where the first film left off, and instead of trying to shoehorn some storyline from the comics into the film, they've chosen to build their own continuity.
The film starts off with a sequence that left me shocked in the very best way. First, there's a voice-over by Xavier about the ongoing struggle for mutants to find their place in the world. It underlines the ideas of the first movie in a very simple, direct way. At the end of the voice-over, as the armored door of Cerebro slams closed, we see the Seal of the President of the United States.
Suddenly we're in the White House, taking a tour. A tour guide reads a placard below a portrait of Abraham Lincoln: "We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break the bonds of our affection." That phrase is key to understanding the constantly shifting alliances in X-MEN 2. This is a movie in which good guys and bad guys aren't who you believe, and from moment to moment our expectations about how these characters will behave are challenged by the circumstances in which they find themselves.
For example, as the tour group approaches a security checkpoint, one man stands back, away from the group, eyeing a janitor's closet on the far side of the checkpoint.
And the first time I read BAMF!, I cheered.
The man, whose face we still haven't seen, vanishes in a puff of smoke, then somehow steps out of the closet, only to be stopped by a Secret Service agent. When he looks up, we get our first look at "THE FACE OF A DEMON: Skin so blue it appears black. His eyes are YELLOW, dilated, and glazed over. This is KURT WAGNER, NIGHTCRAWLER."
As the agent reaches for his gun, Nightcrawler's tail whips up and slams the agent to the ground. In a series of moves, Nightcrawler scurries up walls and across ceilings, teleporting directly into the Oval Office. He single-handedly disarms a circle of Secret Service agents, then attacks the President himself. Nightcrawler draws a knife and is just about to stab the President when he gets shot in the wrist. His eyes seems to clear, and it's as if he suddenly realizes where he is and what he's doing. He disappears, and the Secret Service moves to retrieve the knife, which is stuck in the desk, with a ribbon hanging from the handle that reads "MUTANT FREEDOM NOW."
Needless to say, the climate is no more favorable for mutants in this film than in the first. If anything, it's gotten worse. The incidents on Liberty Island have raised awareness of what can happen when mutants go bad, and mistrust has become an everyday thing. A simple field trip to a museum becomes a challenge for Jean Grey, Scott "Cyclops" Summers, Storm, and a group of Xavier's students including Rogue, Kitty Pryde, Bobby Drake, and John Allerdyce, also known as Pyro. It doesn't help that the students are still kids, prone to all the temperamental displays of typical teenagers. What begins as a simple field trip ends up becoming a tense, uncomfortable showdown with several local teens. Rogue and Pyro and Bobby and Kitty are all well-written, defined quickly with simple details, each of them given distinct personalities. Right up front, there's a better balance to this film. Yes, Wolverine is still front and center. An early scene picks up with him searching for some clue about the Weapon X project at the abandoned Alkali Lake military base in Alberta. But this thing moves. After the field trip, Jean, Storm, and Scott end up meeting with Xavier, trying to sort out the truth of the assassination attempt, all of them convinced that Magneto must be behind it, despite being incarcerated. They're afraid that an incident like this is going to create an even greater rift between mutants and society, reintroducing the Registration Act or even worse.
They're right, of course. At the White House, we meet William Stryker. He's meeting with the President to present him with evidence that ties Xavier and his school, a well-kept secret, to the attempt on the President's life. They're joined at the meeting by Senator Kelly, who seems particularly interested in what Stryker has to say about Magneto, who he says gave him all the information on Xavier's school. Stryker wants permission to take a military envoy into Xavier's school to see exactly what's going on inside. Senator Kelly seems to be sympathetic to mutant rights now, and when he follows Stryker out of the Oval Office, he tries to push Stryker for more details. He's cut off by Anne Reynolds, Stryker's assistant, though, and it's obvious that Stryker wants nothing to do with Kelly. As he walks off, we get a glimpse of yellow in Kelly's eyes, a sign that he might not be what "he" seems to be.
By the time Wolverine returns to Xavier's school, frustrated by how little he's learned, the pieces are all in place for the explosive set piece that is the heart of the first act and that puts everything else in motion. Cyclops and Xavier go to visit Magneto in his plastic prison while Storm and Jean go to try and track down the mutant who is being accused of the near-assassination. Before Cyclops and Xavier can see Magneto, though, he's visited by Stryker, and we see that he has been horribly mistreated in prison, beaten regularly. He's unable to lift a finger to help himself, and a particulary sadistic guard named Laurio is happy to help Stryker get information out of the humbled mutant. Stryker has help from another source, though... an odd yellow liquid that burns into the back of the neck of whoever it's used on, sapping their will somehow. It's awful, and Stryker comes across as a cold-blooded sonofabitch. In anything, you end up feeling sorry for Magneto. All of his worst fears about humans seem to be borne out in the way he is treated by his captors.
While Jean and Storm track down Nightcrawler and learn about the truth of the attack, Wolverine finds himself in charge of the students at Xavier's school for the evening. He decides to spend the time sharpening his instincts a bit, as well as burning off some aggression. And any fan of the X-MEN comics knows what that means: Danger Room, baby. Keep in mind that all of this is before page 25 or so of the script. What kicks the rest of the film off is the assault on the school that takes place while the X-Men are scattered on their various business. And it's a hell of a sequence. Frightening, intense, with appearances by all sorts of mutants that will make fans squeal with pleasure, it's intercut with the springing of a trap that catches Xavier and Cyclops unaware. The action sequences in this film suggest that these X-Men are very powerful, more focused than in the first film, but that their opponents this time are ready for them, able to counter each of their displays of force with something stronger. The students of the school do their best to evacuate, and many of them are able to escape. There are many deaths, though, both human and mutant, and this begins the intentional muddying of who is wrong and who is right in the film. When Wolverine skewers and kills a soldier, he's saving a student, but there's still a dead man laying on the ground. Even worse, when Wolverine comes face to face with Stryker during the raid, he is told that Xavier has been lying to him, that Xavier knows the truth of the Weapon X project, and that Wolverine's origin might be a secret he's better off not knowing. He manages to make Wolverine doubt himself, Xavier, his entire search for the truth. Before Stryker can subdue Wolverine, though, Rogue and Bobby manage to save him. With Pyro, they hit the road, running for some kind of safety.
I don't want to reveal the twists and turns of the second and third act, because they're tons of fun. The way this story unfolds keeps you constantly guessing, constantly working to keep up. Singer and his writers have managed to paint in shades of grey here. Enemies end up working side by side, and friends find themselves at odds. It's intense, reading a full-blown fight between Jean Grey and Cyclops or seeing Mystique and Wolverine fight side-by-side. Even worse, the thing that Magneto and Xavier created to help unite the mutants of the world, Cerebro, is the cornerstone of a plan to destroy all of them in one fell swoop, with Xavier himself serving as the detonator.
MORIARTY: So I get inside and I open the envelope, and there's X-MEN 2. Clean. Just came out of a copier somewhere. 109 pages, with "PRODUCTION DRAFT 4-30-02" on the title page. It's credited to David Hayter, with a story by David Hayter and Bryan Singer, and current revisions by Michael Dougherty & Dan Harris. By now, we're all fairly familiar with the stories about Zak Penn and David Hayter developing separate drafts of the scripts, almost like a competition, with the studio eventually choosing what they felt was the stronger of the two ideas, picking the bones of the other if there was anything worthwhile. I thought it sounded like a terrible way to develop a sequel, and I was particularly discouraged by the idea that Tom DeSanto wasn't involved, considering how important his input was on the first film.Well, get ready, because X-MEN 2 is poised to take the winning streak of Marvel Films to a whole new level. It's smart, fast-paced, filled with page after page of superhero action that we've never seen onscreen before, and it manages to not only introduce new characters successfully, but also fleshes out the mythology of the world and the characters we already met in a deeply satisfying way.
First things first: forget what you think you know about the film, this is a story that picks up right where the first film left off, and instead of trying to shoehorn some storyline from the comics into the film, they've chosen to build their own continuity.
The film starts off with a sequence that left me shocked in the very best way. First, there's a voice-over by Xavier about the ongoing struggle for mutants to find their place in the world. It underlines the ideas of the first movie in a very simple, direct way. At the end of the voice-over, as the armored door of Cerebro slams closed, we see the Seal of the President of the United States.
Suddenly we're in the White House, taking a tour. A tour guide reads a placard below a portrait of Abraham Lincoln: "We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break the bonds of our affection." That phrase is key to understanding the constantly shifting alliances in X-MEN 2. This is a movie in which good guys and bad guys aren't who you believe, and from moment to moment our expectations about how these characters will behave are challenged by the circumstances in which they find themselves.
For example, as the tour group approaches a security checkpoint, one man stands back, away from the group, eyeing a janitor's closet on the far side of the checkpoint.
And the first time I read BAMF!, I cheered.
The man, whose face we still haven't seen, vanishes in a puff of smoke, then somehow steps out of the closet, only to be stopped by a Secret Service agent. When he looks up, we get our first look at "THE FACE OF A DEMON: Skin so blue it appears black. His eyes are YELLOW, dilated, and glazed over. This is KURT WAGNER, NIGHTCRAWLER."
As the agent reaches for his gun, Nightcrawler's tail whips up and slams the agent to the ground. In a series of moves, Nightcrawler scurries up walls and across ceilings, teleporting directly into the Oval Office. He single-handedly disarms a circle of Secret Service agents, then attacks the President himself. Nightcrawler draws a knife and is just about to stab the President when he gets shot in the wrist. His eyes seems to clear, and it's as if he suddenly realizes where he is and what he's doing. He disappears, and the Secret Service moves to retrieve the knife, which is stuck in the desk, with a ribbon hanging from the handle that reads "MUTANT FREEDOM NOW."
Needless to say, the climate is no more favorable for mutants in this film than in the first. If anything, it's gotten worse. The incidents on Liberty Island have raised awareness of what can happen when mutants go bad, and mistrust has become an everyday thing. A simple field trip to a museum becomes a challenge for Jean Grey, Scott "Cyclops" Summers, Storm, and a group of Xavier's students including Rogue, Kitty Pryde, Bobby Drake, and John Allerdyce, also known as Pyro. It doesn't help that the students are still kids, prone to all the temperamental displays of typical teenagers. What begins as a simple field trip ends up becoming a tense, uncomfortable showdown with several local teens. Rogue and Pyro and Bobby and Kitty are all well-written, defined quickly with simple details, each of them given distinct personalities. Right up front, there's a better balance to this film. Yes, Wolverine is still front and center. An early scene picks up with him searching for some clue about the Weapon X project at the abandoned Alkali Lake military base in Alberta. But this thing moves. After the field trip, Jean, Storm, and Scott end up meeting with Xavier, trying to sort out the truth of the assassination attempt, all of them convinced that Magneto must be behind it, despite being incarcerated. They're afraid that an incident like this is going to create an even greater rift between mutants and society, reintroducing the Registration Act or even worse.
They're right, of course. At the White House, we meet William Stryker. He's meeting with the President to present him with evidence that ties Xavier and his school, a well-kept secret, to the attempt on the President's life. They're joined at the meeting by Senator Kelly, who seems particularly interested in what Stryker has to say about Magneto, who he says gave him all the information on Xavier's school. Stryker wants permission to take a military envoy into Xavier's school to see exactly what's going on inside. Senator Kelly seems to be sympathetic to mutant rights now, and when he follows Stryker out of the Oval Office, he tries to push Stryker for more details. He's cut off by Anne Reynolds, Stryker's assistant, though, and it's obvious that Stryker wants nothing to do with Kelly. As he walks off, we get a glimpse of yellow in Kelly's eyes, a sign that he might not be what "he" seems to be.
By the time Wolverine returns to Xavier's school, frustrated by how little he's learned, the pieces are all in place for the explosive set piece that is the heart of the first act and that puts everything else in motion. Cyclops and Xavier go to visit Magneto in his plastic prison while Storm and Jean go to try and track down the mutant who is being accused of the near-assassination. Before Cyclops and Xavier can see Magneto, though, he's visited by Stryker, and we see that he has been horribly mistreated in prison, beaten regularly. He's unable to lift a finger to help himself, and a particulary sadistic guard named Laurio is happy to help Stryker get information out of the humbled mutant. Stryker has help from another source, though... an odd yellow liquid that burns into the back of the neck of whoever it's used on, sapping their will somehow. It's awful, and Stryker comes across as a cold-blooded sonofabitch. In anything, you end up feeling sorry for Magneto. All of his worst fears about humans seem to be borne out in the way he is treated by his captors.
While Jean and Storm track down Nightcrawler and learn about the truth of the attack, Wolverine finds himself in charge of the students at Xavier's school for the evening. He decides to spend the time sharpening his instincts a bit, as well as burning off some aggression. And any fan of the X-MEN comics knows what that means: Danger Room, baby. Keep in mind that all of this is before page 25 or so of the script. What kicks the rest of the film off is the assault on the school that takes place while the X-Men are scattered on their various business. And it's a hell of a sequence. Frightening, intense, with appearances by all sorts of mutants that will make fans squeal with pleasure, it's intercut with the springing of a trap that catches Xavier and Cyclops unaware. The action sequences in this film suggest that these X-Men are very powerful, more focused than in the first film, but that their opponents this time are ready for them, able to counter each of their displays of force with something stronger. The students of the school do their best to evacuate, and many of them are able to escape. There are many deaths, though, both human and mutant, and this begins the intentional muddying of who is wrong and who is right in the film. When Wolverine skewers and kills a soldier, he's saving a student, but there's still a dead man laying on the ground. Even worse, when Wolverine comes face to face with Stryker during the raid, he is told that Xavier has been lying to him, that Xavier knows the truth of the Weapon X project, and that Wolverine's origin might be a secret he's better off not knowing. He manages to make Wolverine doubt himself, Xavier, his entire search for the truth. Before Stryker can subdue Wolverine, though, Rogue and Bobby manage to save him. With Pyro, they hit the road, running for some kind of safety.
I don't want to reveal the twists and turns of the second and third act, because they're tons of fun. The way this story unfolds keeps you constantly guessing, constantly working to keep up. Singer and his writers have managed to paint in shades of grey here. Enemies end up working side by side, and friends find themselves at odds. It's intense, reading a full-blown fight between Jean Grey and Cyclops or seeing Mystique and Wolverine fight side-by-side. Even worse, the thing that Magneto and Xavier created to help unite the mutants of the world, Cerebro, is the cornerstone of a plan to destroy all of them in one fell swoop, with Xavier himself serving as the detonator.