One of the tragi-comic comments on our times—one that strikes you profoundly while watching this sequel to the 2000 hit X-Men—is that the mental make-up of many of today's political leaders, at home and abroad, matches that of Stan Lee's Marvel comic-book villains of 40 years ago. Consider X2's 'bad guy' William Stryker, the paranoid former US Army commander who leads a hate campaign against mutants: his maniacal ravings demonising mutants, projecting them as an evil species out to harm "us humans" have so many echoes in contemporary geopolitical rhetoric that you begin to wonder if Messrs Bush, Modi and Togadia are, truth to tell, cartoon caricatures playing out their two-bit roles in an unmarvellous us-versus-them narrative. Sadly, they aren't. Following an audacious attempt to assassinate the President—the stunning opening sequence introduces Nightcrawler, the endearing Psalm-quoting mutant who teleports himself to the comic-book sounds of 'bamf'—mutants find themselves rather more isolated and reviled. Stryker, who has a score to settle with the 'deviants', secures executive authority to go after them. And although he takes a few hostages, what he's really after is Cerebro, the telepathic machine that can locate, and erase, every mutant on the planet.
The familiar menagerie of X-Men and women come and go: Wolverine, with his embedded claws, is tracing his roots and finds them intertwined with Stryker's Weapon X project; Halle Berry as Storm rolls her eyeballs and unleashes typhoons. But more than such X-gimmickry, it's the bigger drama—of old foes uniting to take on a common aggressor—that's engrossing. Director Bryan Singer carefully positioned X2 not "as a sequel but the next adventure in a saga—an evolution from the first film". And since he doesn't have to flesh out the characters, X2 cuts to the chase sooner. In other ways too, it's a more evolved film (a mutant, so to say): its high-contrast lighting and exaggerated camera angles give it a better comic-book feel than X-Men did. To an untrained eye, however, it appears that the mutants' manifest lack of sexual interest in one another may pose a more serious threat to the propagation of their species than right-wing madmen. But for that, we'll have to wait for the X-rated version.
US top 5
1. Finding Nemo
2. Bruce Almighty
3. The Italian Job
4. The Matrix Reloaded
5. Daddy Day Care
INDIAN top 5
1. Bhoot
2. Andaz
3. Ishq Vishq
4. Armaan
5. Jajantram Mamantram
Courtesy: Film Information
