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X2: X-Men United is an action film and is the second part of the trilogy based on the X-Men comic books; following X-Men (2000), and preceding X-Men: The Last Stand (2006). It was directed by Bryan Singer, and starred an ensemble cast including Patrick Stewart, Hugh Jackman, Ian McKellen, Halle Berry, Rebecca Romijn, Famke Janssen, James Marsden, Anna Paquin, Brian Cox, Shawn Ashmore, Kelly Hu and Alan Cumming. It first released in the United States on May 2, 2003. The film is loosely based on the 1982 X-Men graphic novel God Loves, Man Kills. In the film, William Stryker is a high-ranking army colonel who leads an assault into Professor Xavier's school to build his own version of Xavier's mutant-tracking computer Cerebro in order to destroy every mutant on Earth. The X-Men are forced to ally with Magneto and Mystique to defeat Stryker. X2: X-Men United, which introduced Nightcrawler to filmgoers, surpassed the initial film at the box office, earning approx. $215 million in North America compared to $157.3 million for X-Men, making the sequel one of the top ten movies of 2003.
PlotSpoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.
Image:Mutantgroup.jpg The X-Men join with Magneto and Mystique to stop Stryker. In personating Senator Robert Kelly, and Stryker's assistant Yuriko Oyama, Mystique gains information about Magneto's prison and provides a means for him to escape. Wolverine, along with Pyro, Iceman and Rogue, heads to Iceman's home in Boston. The police arrive just as the group is about to leave, and Pyro begins using his abilities to attack the officers and destroy their cars. Rogue manages to stop him just as the X-Jet arrives to pick them all up. The X-Jet is targeted by two Air Force fighter jets who attempt to force a landing. After the X-Jet refuses to land, the pilots fire missiles. Jean is able to destroy one of the missiles, but the other detonates directly behind the jet. The jet, en route to a crash landing, is stopped at the last moment by Magneto, who is standing on the ground. Magneto has learned that Stryker orchestrated the attack on the President, and has been experimenting on mutants. Jean Grey reads Nightcrawler's mind and determines that Stryker's base is located at Alkali Lake, inside the dam. Stryker has been using a drug, injected directly into the back of the neck, to control mutants. He has also stolen enough equipment from Xavier's own Cerebro unit to build a second Cerebro; he plans to use Professor X to kill all of the mutants in the world. The X-Men and Magneto join together in an effort to stop Stryker. On the way to Alkali Lake, Pyro has a conversation with Magneto about how the world perceives them. Stryker gains control over Professor Xavier through his son, Jason Stryker, who is able to project powerful visions in the mind, blinding a person to reality. Professor X is instructed to use Cerebro to find and kill all existing mutants. Mystique infiltrates the based disguised as Wolverine. Mystique manages to take over the control room, opening up the main gates for the X-Men. Storm and Nightcrawler pair off, searching for the kidnapped students. Jean, Magneto, and Mystique are attacked by a brainwashed Cyclops on their way to rescue Professor X. Cyclops' optic blast causes damage to the generators that keep the dam from collapsing. Wolverine finds Stryker in an adamantium smelting room along with Lady Deathstrike. Wolverine and Lady Deathstrike begin fighting, which ends with Wolverine pumping Deathstrike full of molten adamantium metal, killing her. Wolverine finds Stryker on a landing pad and stabs him in the stomach. Stryker attempts to bargain with Wolverine, telling him that if he comes with him he can tell him about his past. Wolverine refuses and straps the wounded Stryker to the helicopter wheel. Mystique, disquised as Stryker, uses Jason to convince Professor X to kill all humans. Magneto and Mystique escape on the helicopter, alongside with Pyro who has decided to join them. Meanwhile, Nightcrawler teleports Storm inside of Cerebro, from where she frees the Professor from his telepathic illusion. A malfunction aboard the X-Jet prevents it from taking off and the dam finally bursts. The flood gets stronger, drowning Stryker. Jean leaves the jet and creates a telekinetic wall in order to stop the wave, and at the same time raises the jet above the flood waters; all the while surrounded by a corona of fire. Jean activates the X-Jet's primary engines, before lowering her telekinetic shield and allowing herself to be consumed by the flood waters. Back at the White House, the President prepares to address the country on the perceived mutant threat. Just as he begins his speech the X-Men appear before him. Rogue gives him the files from Stryker's private offices while Professor X tells him about the events of the last few days. Then Professor X warns him that humans and mutants must work together to build peace, or they will destroy each other through war. The film ends with a voiceover by Jean Grey, on the process of evolution. The camera floats over Alkali Lake, showing a vague shape of a Phoenix in the lake. CastInspiration
Bryan Singer credited The Empire Strikes Back and The Wrath of Khan as his influences on this film. The latter film also features a voice-over at the end from a dead character, hinting at their resurrection in the next film. Links to the Marvel UniverseIn the scene where Mystique accesses Stryker's computer for the location of Magneto's cell, a list of mutants can be seen, many of which are from the comic books, including Remy LeBeau (Gambit), the Guthrie children Sam (Cannonball) and Paige (Husk), Kevin MacTaggert (Proteus, the son of Moira MacTaggert), Jamie Madrox (Multiple Man), the Maximoff children Wanda (Scarlet Witch) and Pietro (Quicksilver) (Magneto's offspring in the comics), Xi'an Coy Mahn (Karma) and Danielle Moonstar (Moonstar); the latter two are part of the New Mutants group of the X-Men. Of these, only Multiple Man appears in any of the films, playing a small role in X-Men: The Last Stand. Also on the list was Arthur Maddicks, a Morlock in the comics; it is generally assumed that the child with the forked tongue, called 'Artie' by Storm is Arthur Maddicks in the film's universe[citation needed]. Also in that scene, Mystique sees a computer file on Omega Red; there is a folder called Franklin Richards, the mutant son of Reed Richards and Sue Storm of the Fantastic Four; a folder on Project Wideawake, an operation that called for the construction of giant, mutant-hunting robots known as Sentinels; a folder on Muir Island (Moira MacTaggert later plays a minor role in the third film) and a folder on Gamma Flight, assumingly Alpha Flight's junior level training squad. In the scene where Mystique confronts the guard to Magneto's plastic cell in a bar, a news broadcast is on the TV by the bar. It shows an interview with a Dr. Hank McCoy, who in the comics is the X-Men member Beast, debating Dr. Sebastian Shaw, the Black King of the Hellfire Club. In the scene where William Stryker's troops raid Charles Xaiver's school for mutants, the panicked students include Kitty Pryde (Shadowcat), Theresa Rourke Cassidy (Siryn) and Piotr Rasputin (Colossus). Theresa is the girl whose blood-curdling scream wakes everyone up, and Kitty is the girl who becomes intangible, falls through the bed, and jumps through several guards. Colossus is the muscled student whose body becomes organic steel armor. In the lab where Wolverine's adamantium skeleton was implanted, there are X-rays on the wall; one appears to depict a person's back with a wing. This may have been intended as an homage to a comics storyline in which the X-Man Angel lost his wings and was implanted with metal ones; however, the appearance of Angel in X-Men: The Last Stand had feathered wings . There are also X-rays of one of Deathstrike's forearms and hands, with her talons retracted and extended. A bit more obvious amount of foreshadowing of the third movie is used. Whenever Jean's powers became stronger than usual, she was often depicted as glowing with fire, a sign of the Phoenix. The ending shot over the Alkali Lake shows the image of a burning object in the shape of a bird under the water. Differences from the comic bookLongtime fans of the X-Men title will recognize that some liberties have been taken with the X-Men characters. While the movie need not follow all the conventions of the comic, they are interesting to note, and form their own separate fictional continuity.
In summary, characters from many different times, titles and lineups were selected and placed into a new lineup that had never before been seen in any X-Men comic. Critical reaction and box officeAs with the original film, X2 garnered praise from critics and won over most of the comic book community, and it earned more money at the box office, totaling $214.9M for North America and $407.5M worldwide[1]. The comic-book hobbyist magazine Wizard called it the best comic book movie of the year (2003). Empire magazine called it the best comic book movie of all time in 2006.[1] Movie tie-insVideo gamesX2 had a game tie-in on X2: Wolverine's Revenge which has nothing to do with the events of the movie. There is also another game, X-Men: The Official Game which bridges the gap between X2 and X-Men: The Last Stand. Specifically, it explains Nightcrawler's absence from the third X-Men movie. However, X-Men: The Official Game is not truly X2's game, but the third X-Men movie, as this game came around in the same year as the third film. ComicsThe comic adaptation of the film was written without its writers knowing the actual ending of X2 as it was kept under wraps and therefore the comic's ending is different from the finished film. Trivia
Folders on another screen carry the names:
Many of these are spotted only by pausing and possibly zooming the screen.
Notes
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