I’m still surprised at the direction director Brian Singer has been taking X-Men. But I like it. The comic book has gained a lot of popularity among kids in the last ten years, in part through a cartoon series that ran for some time. Considering, it would have been tempting to direct an X-Men movie towards a younger audience.

But Singer takes the X-Men seriously and provides us with something that’s seriously good. X2 has much of the same feel as X-Men, while bringing us deeper into the mutant world.

That marks another thing I kind of like about X2. Though I generally like an all inclusive story, I like the serial tone furthered in X2. It’s obvious that Singer intends on creating a third episode and beyond; many of the film’s storylines pick up from X-Men and don’t finish with the end of X2.

The conflict between the government and the mutants remains the primary storyline in X2. In this episode, the government has hired a man named Stryker (Brian Cox) to head up human-mutant affairs, but Stryker has his own devious agenda – to kill all mutants completely. He attempts this by capturing and controlling Professor X (Patrick Stewart), who has the power, with the aid of certain equipment, to kill all the mutants with his mind.

The X-Men go to save Professor X while also dealing with their own problems. Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) is still searching for the truth about his past and still in love with Jean Grey (Famke Janssen, who is still married to Cyclops (James Marsden). Iceman (Shawn Ashmore) and Rogue (Anna Paquin) try to develop a relationship even though Rogue can’t be touched on the skin, and Nightcrawler (Alan Cumming) teaches Storm (Halle Berry) a little something about faith in God.

Meanwhile, Magneto (Ian McKellen) escapes from prison with the help of Mystique (Rebecca Romijn-Stamos) and Yuriko Oyama (Kelly Hu) and tries to reverse the proves undergone by Professor X so that he kills all humans instead of all mutants. Along the way, he also gains the support of the fiery teen called Pyro (Aaron Stanford).

While the conclusion of X2 resolves only the current particular conflict, its open ends leave room for the development of another fun-filled, action packed issue of the X-Men in years to come. I hope it does come.

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