X2: X-Men United – Blu Ray Review
The Film:
One can forget how great this film was by the wasted attempts at furthering the franchise with X-Men: The Last Stand and X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Bryan Singer not only capitalized on a bigger budget, but also carried the momentum from the first film into X2: X-Men United by weaving multiple stories, subplots, all the while still focusing on character. He not only crafted a fine film and sequel, but one of the better superhero films in this increasingly stuffed genre.
That was no easy feat since this film focuses on a team, with a multitude of characters and villains, rather than one hero. Each character is given an arc, something worth while to do in the film, so it’s a shame we never got to see Singer complete his trilogy. I bet his vision would’ve been grand, instead of the cure story we got in the third film (a rush production to beat out his Superman Returns, fans lost on both accounts that year). One of the things I enjoy about this film, is how each character has an awesome introduction within the film. From Nightcrawler’s incredible break-in into the Oval Office, to the snowy shot of Wolverine coming across the Canadian landscape to find an empty research facility, to Xavier stopped time to scold Pyro, even Magneto’s escape, each character is given this and its really cool. Never underestimate the power of an introduction in film.
Looking back at the film, a few things came back to me and why I love this film. First, its the best Wolverine story on film we’ve got; from his attitude (he wastes like nine of those soldiers during the raid), to his Weapon X origin, to his arc of letting go of his past, all of this is far better handled here than in his recent solo film. Another thing is the quality of the writing, which leads to a perfect juggling of the multitude of stories within this film. Besides Stryker’s manipulation of the mutants and even of the President, we still got Magneto and his ideology, and then don’t forget the man versus mutant conflict is still raging. Then there’s subplots: Jean’s power is raging out of control, the love triangle between Wolverine, Jean, and Scott, Pryo’s emergence into Magneto’s way of thinking-X2 and more importantly, Bryan Singer and his team juggle all of this with such perfection, it looks easy.
Finally, let’s not forget that this was a summer tentpole film for Fox and boy, does it deliver on those expectations. X2 weaves the action scenes perfectly into the themes and story, without sacrificing those. Wolverine’s battle with Lady Deathstrike is absolutely brutal, the siege on Xavier’s school, the aforementioned Nightcrawler attack in the White House, to Storm’s reigning tornadoes down on the fighter jets, X2 had some big action scenes that perfectly meddled into the story. I wish more films use this as a model, since we’re given big action scenes year after year that stop a film dead because they don’t fit naturally into the story.
Anyway, I hope I’m preaching to the choir here; X2 is a fantastic film-still.
The Blu Ray:
Audio/Video: You know Fox wouldn’t drop the ball here, right? X2 looks and sounds fantastic. Sharp detail, bright colors, the image is as gorgeous as I have ever seen it. Luckily, this sounds like a war in your home theater too. Bass heavy, surrounds fully active, but it handles the quite moments of dialogue just as well as the action scenes. By far, a perfect BD disc worthy of demo material.
Commentaries: The first track has Singer with his DP and this is a light but highly informative listen. Singer is knowledgeable and a good talker. This is the track to listen to for X-Men fans. The other track has the two writers, screenwriter, and producer and is for the pure hardcore fans. Full of great material, I think a casual fan will enjoy Singer’s more, but don’t knock this track.
History of the X-Men: This is a quick primer course on the X-Men and Nightcrawler. Interviews are given and its a good watch. Casual fans will love it, die hards will want more.
Production Featurettes: Totaling about 35 minutes worth, we are given individual segments for most of anything to do with Nightcrawler, FX, and the Wolverine/Deathstrike fight. Good stuff here for fans of the film and fans of making ofs.
Designing X2: Here, Guy Dyas the production designer gives us a tour of how they tried to keep in the spirit of the first film but top it. Decent stuff to hear here.
United Colors of X2: We’re given a character by character breakdown of the look of each mutant by the costume designer.
Score of X2: John Ottoman gives us a nice talk about his interesting score for the film. I love features on the composers, so I took a delight in hearing what he had to say.
Deleted Scenes, Galleries, Digital Copy, and a Multi-Angle Study round out this solid selection of extras. I believe most of these were on the nice DVD set of a few years ago, and they’re all in SD.
Conclusion: The fantastic, complex mutant saga is a must have on Blu Ray for superhero fans, action fans, and home theater junkies. We may never get a good X-Men film again, so be it. X2 fulfills all of our wants and needs in a X-Men film. A must own.
Rating: 
