X2- X-Men United

March 4, 2005 - Posted by Bryan Kremkau | File under DVD Reviews

One of the best comic book movies ever! This is a great example of a movie being bigger and better than the original film. All of the returning cast are back with some new faces like Alan Cumming (Nightcrawler), Brian Cox (Stryker), Aaron Stanford (Pyro), and Kelly Hu (Deathstryke). The story involves X-men fighting the same species they are trying to protect (Humans..duh!), and battle a few mutants as well who have a different take on the whole mutant-human situation. You should know the story by now so let’s get to the extras shall we!

I was really impressed with the extras on the disc. I started from the beginning of disc 2 and didn’t stop watching this disc for a few hours so it was pretty interesting and intriguing stuff. I started off with the comic book featurettes “” and “Nightcrawler Reborn: The Adventure Before X2.” They were informative and featured Stan Lee and other comic book artists and writers talking about the overall story of Xmen and then a separate featurette about the character Nightcrawler. That featurette was great because the creator of his character was interviewed and talked how he came up with him and other things of that nature. The next thing I watched was the a featurette on the set design and the overall designing aspect of the movie which was neat. I forget what featurette it was but it was in the “pre-production” section.

Next was the “production” section and that had the best featurette of the bunch, The Second Uncanny Issue of X-Men- “The Ultimate Making-Of Documentary.” That was an hour + and was fun to watch. It went through all of shooting, and had interviews with cast and crew members. At the very end is a funny outtake with Jean Grey and the rest of the X-men. I kind of was hoping all the funny outtakes I read about on the Internet would make it’s way onto this DVD but nope, not here. I kind of wished they replaced Deleted Scenes with Outtakes because the Deleted Scenes were pretty weak. Most of them were extended scenes and if you blinked, you missed the new footage. Other footage wasn’t important or memorable so I can see why they cut it out. The Visual Effects featurette was great to watch because I like all that stuff. They went over each SFX sequence and showed how they did everything. The score featurette was fun to watch. John Ottman did an excellent job with the score and giving each character a theme, and the main theme is kick ass too. The first film didn’t have that. Ottman is also an editor and director as well so he’s a jack of all trades which is impressive. But that featurette shows some scoring sessions and an interview with John Ottman. There’s 2 mini featurettes on Alan Cummings and Nightcrawler. One is a time lapse of Alan Cummings getting into his Nightcrawler makeup and gear. I seriously hope he comes back for the third film because he said he didn’t want to because of the make up and I can see his point. Almost 8-10 hours a day getting into that make up, that’s crazy! There is a few other things on here but I didn’t check them out like the commentaries, galleries and global webcast chat session. This DVD is definitely worth buying, and if they plan on releasing another DVD of this movie anytime soon (like the first film), this one is still good to keep because it has a lot of great extras on here.

Features:
Disc One:
- Full-Length Audio Commentary (Director Bryan Singer and Cinematographer Newton Thomas Sigel, ASC)
- Full-Length Audio Commentary (Writers and Producers)

Disc 2:
- “Nightcrawler Attack” Interactive Multi-Angle Scene Study
- “Wolverine/Deathstrike Fight Rehearsal” In Depth, Behind-the-Scenes Exploration
- “The Second Uncanny Issue of X-Men” – The Ultimate Making-Of Documentary
- 11 Deleted/Extended Scenes Scenes
- 6 Revealing Still Galleries
- Theatrical Trailers
- Extraordinary X2 Featurettes, Including-:
- The Secret Origin of X-Men: A Complete Anthology
- Nightcrawler Reborn: The Adventure Before X2
- Introducing the Incredible Nightcrawler Character Study & More!

Audio:
ENGLISH: Dolby Digital 5.1 CC
ENGLISH: DTS 5.1 CC
SPANISH: Dolby Digital Surround
FRENCH: Dolby Digital Surround

Video:
Widescreen 2.40:1 Color (Anamorphic)

Subtitles:
English, Spanish

RATING & SUMMARY:

Favorites: The opening sequence with Nightcrawler is amazing! The Mansion attack was cool as well. The Wolverine and Lady Deathstryke fight was entertaining.
Rating: PG-13
Running Time: 0 minutes
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X2- X-Men United

March 1, 2005 - Posted by Bryan Kremkau | File under Movie Reviews

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Starring: Patrick Stewart, Hugh Jackman, Ian McKellen, Halle Berry, Famke Janssen, James Marsden, Rebecca Romijn-Stamos, Brian Cox, Alan Cumming, Bruce Davison, Anna Paquin, Kelly Hu, Aaron Stanford, Shawn Ashmore, Daniel Cudmore
Written By:
Directed By: Bryan Singer
I’ve been waiting since the first movie for a sequel and it’s finally here, three years later and X2 just blows the first movie away! Lots of new characters, the special effects are 20 times better, more action, more hot ass female characters and more Wolverine being a badass. Plus this film is a bit dark too!

The story is about a rogue mutant attacking the President and Stryker (Brian Cox), who’s a scientist/ politician/ military official, wants to round up all the mutants in the world and get rid of them, starting with Xavier’s mansion. Meanwhile, Wolverine is still trying to figure out his past, Jean Grey is losing control of her powers, Rogue and Iceman are an item now, Storm lost her accent and has new hair, Magneto is getting the crap beat out of him in jail and Mystique is causing more mischief. The mutants put their beliefs behind them and join forces to stop this war between humans and mutants. Or something like that.

I had to see this twice this weekend, it’s that good! Second time seeing this was just as good because I went with 12 friends or so and we were cheering our brains out for certain scenes. It was cool because we got the rest of the audience clapping as well, felt like a Star Wars viewing. I’d pay money to go see it again just to see the opening scene with one of my favorite characters of Xmen, Nightcrawler. My other favorite character, besides Wolverine, is Colossus. He’s makes a memorable cameo in this film and if they don’t put him the next film, well I’ll..I’ll just wait to see the movie not on opening day! ha! With all the characters in the film, I thought it was well balanced and the story flowed nicely. Though some characters didn’t have as much screen time like Cyclops, and Lady Deathstrike. Wolverine’s story is still in the front but other characters get more screen time like Jean Grey, Storm, Iceman, and Mystique. I was pretty shock with one thing in the movie involving one of the characters. I didn’t know they were going into that story so soon. But it was really cool nonetheless. I also liked how they did Pyro in the movie. It’s exactly how I thought it was going to turn out. He was a brat, thinks for himself, sense of humor and an egomaniac. Mystique’s role def. was better than the first film. She had some memorable scenes as well, plus she’s naked and blue. She’d give Papa Smurf a woody. Nightcrawler was just awesome. I can’t wait to see what he does the next movie. Now about the effects, they were a lot better this time around and didn’t look that bad. The effects when nightcrawler teleports were super cool, and the noise was dope! POOF! The reason why the movie is better, the story, etc. is they took their time with it, and had a bigger budget so it def. paid off. This is a great flick to start the summer off!!! GO SEE THIS!! Now bring on Matrix Reloaded!

RATING & SUMMARY:

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Rating: –Sel
Running Time: 0 minutes
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