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Summary: "X-Men 2" picks up almost directly where "X-Men" left off: misguided super-villain Magneto (Ian McKellan) is still a prisoner of the US government, heroic bad-boy Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) is up in Canada investigating his mysterious origin, and the events at Liberty Island (which occurred at the conclusion of "X-Men") have prompted a rethink in official policy towards mutants--the proposed Mutant Registration Act has been shelved by US Congress. Into this scenario pops wealthy former Army commander William Stryker, a man with the President's ear and a personal vendetta against all mutant-kind in general, and the X-Men's leader Professor X (Patrick Stewart) in particular. Once he sets his plans into motion, the X-Men must team-up with their former enemies Magneto and Mystique (Rebecca Romjin-Stamos), as well as some new allies (including Alan Cumming's gregarious, blue-skinned German mutant, Nightcrawler).
The phenomenal global success of "X-Men" meant that director Bryan Singer had even more money to spend on its sequel, and it shows. Not only is the script better (there's significantly less cheesy dialogue than the original), but the action and effects are also even more stupendous--from Nightcrawler's teleportation sequence through the White House to a thrilling aerial dogfight featuring mutants-vs-missiles to a military assault on the X-Men's school/headquarters to the final showdown at Stryker's sub-Arctic headquarters. Yet at no point do the effects overtake the film or the characters. Moreso than the original, this is an ensemble piece, allowing each character in its even-bigger cast at least one moment in the spotlight (in fact, the cast credits don't even run until the end of the film). And that, perhaps, is part of its problem (though it's a slight one)--with so much going on, and nary a recap of what's come before, it's a film that could prove baffling to anyone who missed the first installment. But that's just a minor quibble--"X-Men 2" is that rare thing, a sequel that's actually superior to its predecessor. "--Robert Burrow"

Summary: Although the superhero comic book has been a duopoly since the early 1960s, only DC's flagship characters, Superman and Batman (who originated in the late 1930s) have established themselves as big-screen franchises. Until now--this is the first runaway hit film version of the alternative superhero "X-Men" universe created for Marvel Comics by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby and others. It's a rare comic-book movie that doesn't fall over its cape introducing all the characters, and this is the exception. "X-Men" drops us into a world that is closer to our own than "Batman"'s Gotham City, but it's still home to super-powered goodies and baddies. Opening in high seriousness with paranormal activity in a WW2 concentration camp and a senatorial inquiry into the growing "mutant problem", Bryan Singer's film sets up a complex background with economy and establishes vivid, strange characters well before we get to the fun. There's Halle Berry flying and summoning snowstorms, James Marsden zapping people with his "optic beams", Rebecca Romijn-Stamos shape-shifting her blue naked form, and Ray Park lashing out with his Toad-tongue. The big conflict is between Patrick Stewart's Professor X and Ian McKellen's Magneto, super-powerful mutants who disagree about their relationship with ordinary humans, but the characters we're meant to identify with are Hugh Jackman's Wolverine (who has retractable claws and amnesia), and Anna Paquin's Rogue (who sucks the life and superpowers out of anyone she touches). The plot has to do with a big gizmo that will wreak havoc at a gathering of world leaders, but the film is more interested in setting up a tangle of bizarre relationships between even more bizarre people, with solid pros such as Stewart and McKellen relishing their sly dialogue and the newcomers strutting their stuff in cool leather outfits. There are in-jokes enough to keep comics' fans engaged, but it feels more like a science fiction movie than a superhero picture. --"Kim Newman"

Comments: Box set, Special Edition

Summary: You should have brought back Bryan Singer. Brett Ratner delivers an action packed movie, teeming with fantastic special effects. Yet, Ratner (though a good director) must learn that it does no harm to leave a bit more room in the film for character development. Singer was interested in getting to know the characters, Ratner is interested in getting to the end of the film and finishing off X-men for good.

We meet new mutants such as Angel, Beast, The Phoenix, Shadow Cat, Juggernaut to name but a few but, quite honestly, what's the point in introducing new mutants if you don't get the chance to learn more about them? I reckon Angel only says about seven lines in the whole film! Like skating on ice, Ratner merely skims the surface of character development; he does not delve in deeply. He seems to skim over the plot too. You're concentrating on one major subject in the film and before you know it another one pops up, oh, and another one and another one. If you want to have a romantic relationship between Shadow Cat and Ice Man then please make it more than just ice skating across a pond at the school. If you want to show that a distorted relationship has turned smooth between Angel and his Father, make it more than just having Angel save his Father from death by falling from a height. Why don't you further the relationship between Jean Grey and Cyclops and let us see what they're like together even though The Phoenix is at large in Jean's mind? Instead, as a blunt explanation, Cyclops is killed off along with others (sorry). The plot is quick-paced and needs to slow down for the audience to take it all in. Why doesn't Ratner think about all this? Simply because he was determined that this movie was going to be the finale for X-men.

X-men: The Last Stand - maybe a good thing as content has been degraded since Bryan Singer's 1 and 2. If you want a good action flick that will overwhelm you and the television screen, then this movie can satisfy the demand - that's about it.

Languages: English, Spanish, French, Portuguese

Subtitles: English, Spanish, Cantonese, Mandarin Chinese, Portuguese

Sound: AC-3

Summary: Wolverine, fan favorite of the X-Men universe in both comic books and film, gets his own movie vehicle with X-Men Origins: Wolverine, a tale that reaches way, way back into the hairy mutant's story. Somewhere in the wilds of northwest Canada in the early 1800s, two boys grow up amid violence: half-brothers with very special powers. Eventually they will become the near-indestructible warriors (and victims of a super-secret government program) known as Wolverine and Sabretooth, played respectively by Hugh Jackman (returning to his role) and Liev Schreiber (new to the scene). It helps enormously to have Schreiber, an actor of brawny skills, as the showiest villain; the guy can put genuine menace into a vocal inflection or a shift of the eyes. Danny Huston is the sinister government operative whose experiments keep pullin' Wolverine back in, Lynn Collins is the woman who shares a peaceful Canadian co-existence with our hero when he tries to drop out of the program, and Ryan Reynolds adds needed humor, at least for a while. The fast-paced early reels give an entertaining kick-off to the Wolverine saga, only to slow down when a proper plot must be put together--but isn't that perpetually the problem with origin stories? And despite a cool setting, the grand finale is a little hemmed in by certain plot essentials that must be in place for the sequels, which may be why characters do nonsensical things. So, this one is fun while it lasts, if you're not looking for a masterpiece, or an explanation for Wolverine's facial grooming. --Robert Horton


Stills from X-Men Origins: Wolverine (Click for larger image)

Languages: English, Spanish, French

Subtitles: English, Spanish

Sound: AC-3

Summary: When Bryan Singer brought Marvel's "X-Men" to the big screen, Magneto and Professor X were elder statesmen, but Matthew Vaughn (Kick-Ass) travels back in time to present an origin story--and an alternate version of history.
While Charles Xavier (Laurence Belcher) grows up privileged in New York, Erik Lehnsherr (Bill Milner) grows up underprivileged in Poland. As children, the mind-reading Charles finds a friend in the shape-shifting Raven (Jennifer Lawrence) and Erik finds an enemy in Sebastian Shaw (Kevin Bacon), an energy-absorbing Nazi scientist who treats the metal-bending lad like a lab rat. By 1962, Charles (James McAvoy) has become a swaggering genetics professor and Erik (Michael Fassbender) has become a brooding agent of revenge. CIA agent Moira (Rose Byrne) brings the two together to work for Division X. With the help of MIB (Oliver Platt) and Hank (Nicholas Hoult), they seek out other mutants, while fending off Shaw and Emma Frost (January Jones), who try to recruit them for more nefarious ends, leading to a showdown in Cuba between the United States and the Soviet Union, the good and bad mutants, and Charles and Erik, whose goals have begun to diverge.
Throughout, Vaughn crisscrosses the globe, piles on the visual effects, and juices the action with a rousing score, but it's the actors who make the biggest impression as McAvoy and Fassbender prove themselves worthy successors to Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen. The movie comes alive whenever they take center stage, and dies a little when they don't. For the most part, though, Vaughn does right by playing up the James Bond parallels and acknowledging the debt to producer Bryan Singer through a couple of clever cameos.

Languages: English, French, Spanish

Subtitles: English, French, Spanish

Sound: Dolby

Summary: The ultimate X-Men ensemble fights a war for the survival of the species across two time periods in X-Men: Days of Future Past. The characters from the original X-Men film trilogy join forces with their younger selves from X-Men: First Class in an epic battle that must change the past - to save our future.