X2: X-Men United
As the title hints, in this continuation of the first film, again the "good" X-Men, lead by Professor Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart) and the "evil" X-Men, lead by Magneto (Ian McKellen) must join forces to defeat an "evil" human, William Stryker (Brian Cox) who plans to use the Super Computer to kill all the mutants on earth. And so the troops unite (Storm, Jean Grey, Cyclops, Mystique [still a hotty], Nightcrawler [the coolest looking], Rogue, Pyro, and Iceman) to defeat this mutual enemy. While I did like the original X-Men movie the most out of the many attempts to bring comic book characters to the big screen, I had a hard time sitting through more of the same: remember, this is a continuation. My experience with comic book plots (although limited) leads me to believe they are low-brow morality plays (this one actually has a character praying) where the good guys wear white hats and the bad guys the black hats. Yes, I enjoyed some of the action scenes, but the melodramatics dragged me down with the plot. Will Wolverine discover who he really is? (Who cares?) Who will Jean Grey choose to love, Wolverine or Cyclops? (Who cares?) How will Iceman and Rogue show their love if they can't touch? (Oh please!) And the over-emphasized chorus: Mutants are people, too! Forget it! This is a comic book, so stick to the action and fantastic adventures. Finally, both films mentioned "the coming war." So let's get to it already (hopefully in the third film) and maybe I'll walk away satisfied, finally.

X-Men III: The Last Stand
This time around, Warren Worthington II (Michael Murphy), a human doctor with a mutant son, Angel (Ben Foster), discovers a "cure" for the mutant disease in the form of a child who cures mutants with physical contact. Worthington believes the world will welcome his discovery, especially the mutants (and his son) who couldn't possibly want to remain mutants. But in this lies the rub! Magneto (Ian McKellen) doesn't believe mutants need a cure. "There's nothing wrong with us!" he chants. "It's the humans that need the cure." Even Professor Xavier (Patrick Stewart) wonders if the cure will be forced on the mutants who he believes are special. But the scene-stealing role goes to Dr. Hank McCoy/Beast (played by Kelsey Grammer) as head of The Dept. of Mutant Affairs, who also voices his concerns about being left out of the loop. Finally, not trusting the humans, and probably with some good cause, Magneto organizes an army of dissident mutants (Mystique, Juggernaut, Callisto, Kid Omega, Pyro, and the others) to declare war on the humans (although this appears to only be happening in the United States.) Now Xavier and his school of good mutants (Wolverine, Storm, Rogue, Iceman, and the rest) need to take sides. Throw into the mix subplots about the Jekyll/Hyde personality of the resurrected Dr. Jean Grey/Phoenix (Famke Janssen), whose powers surpass Magneto's, and some of the unresolved love interests of the previous films, and you have X-Men III. This episode did emanate more believable tension then the previous films and the action scenes did become riveting at times with enough new mutants on both sides to add some new talents to the mix and keep things fresh and interesting. Especially interesting were the unbridled evil powers of Jean Grey. I cheered a bit more during X-Men III and actually felt some compassion for the "bad" mutants, because, after all, they saw their goal as a noble one, especially when the military started using the anti-mutant drug as a weapon. Of course, I still had to overlook some of the over-the-top silliness that seems to plague comic-book-to-film plots. There's even a very slight hint that the story might continue, but that's a big might. We'll just have to wait and see.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine
The story starts, to my surprise, in 1845 where we meet a young Logan/Wolverine (Hugh Jackson) and his brother, Victor Creed/Sabretooth (Liev Schreiber) as Logan makes a rash decision and shocking discovery that leads to he and his brother running from the law. Then through snippets, we see the brothers grow into adults fighting in the American Civil War, World War I, World War II, and Vietnam. Yes, they are almost indestructible. All this fighting and blood lust takes them to the present where they are now working as mercenaries, with other mutants, for the US government. However, after the violence gets out of hand, Logan abandons the government group for a more peaceful life. Unfortunately, the government isn’t ready to let Wolverine go and sends Sabretooth, among others, to track him down. I was pleasantly surprised with X-Men Origins: Wolverine, because, even though there were other mutants involved, the story didn’t need to revolve around all of them, but only relate them to us as they affected Wolverine. And this smaller story concept kept the film tight and on track, with no loose ends. A character I enjoyed, who was new to me, was Remy LeBeau/Gambit (Taylor Kitsch) whose mutant powers allowed him use playing cards and a cane as weapons, which lead to some interesting martial arts displays. Also keeping the film tight was Liev Schreiber as Sabretooth, who provided riveting on screen action with the way he ran on all fours, as well as with his portrayal of the film’s main villain. There is plenty of fast-paced action here, but with this film, we also get the kinds of plot twists not found in the previous, X-Men films, making this the kind of film that might appeal to a wider audience. Obviously, using “X-Men Origins” in the title leaves the franchise open to explaining the origins of other X-Men. I only hope they do it as well as they did with Wolverine.