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— by Ryan J. Downey and Robert Mancini
You wanna try to steal Wolverine's spotlight, bub?
Clearly the muscle-bound roughneck with the Adamantium claws — to steal a phrase from the Wu — ain't nuthin' to f--- wit. Yet, there's a small army trying to muscle in on his precious screen time. Newcomers Nightcrawler, Pyro and Lady Deathstrike join Professor X, Magneto, Cyclops, Storm, Rogue, Iceman, Mystique and Jean Grey as the major mutated players at the center of "X2: X-Men United," the sequel to 2000's "X-Men." Throw in glimpses of other mutant faves from the long-running comic book, and you'd think at least one of them would get lost in the shuffle.
Fortunately for all involved, it seems that a 37-year-old guy from New Jersey has one power that no mutant or human can touch: Bryan Singer can effectively handle the X-Men. As he did the first time around, Singer, who also directed the 1995 criminal cult flick "The Usual Suspects," balances his characters, investing each with a certain degree of depth, all while keeping the action moving.
"Everyone was worried about how you [can] have so many characters and make it work," confessed Hugh "Wolverine" Jackman, hanging around a Pasadena, California, hotel with Singer, screenwriters Michael Dougherty and Dan Harris and most of the "X2" cast, and greeting the press.
"I was worried [that] it was going to be [just] the tip of the iceberg on all of these stories," added Famke Janssen, who reprises her role as Dr. Jean Grey. "But it really got to delve into all these little relationships ... It all worked."
"I think every character has at least one really good, defining moment," Jackman agreed. "Everything's become sharper and crisper."
This time around, Professor Xavier's (Patrick Stewart) band of mutants is still struggling to coexist with non-super-powered people in a world that hates and fears them. When an all-too-human threat — a military madman called Stryker (Brian Cox) who believes that all mutants should be rounded up and destroyed — emerges, old conflicts are put aside, new alliances are formed and surprises abound. Beyond the big stuff, though, Singer and company once again explore the smaller, more personal conflicts of each character: the deeply spiritual Nightcrawler (Alan Cumming) struggles to develop faith in himself and others; a wounded, distrustful and vengeful Pyro (Aaron Stanford) finds his outlook clashing with his X-Men peers; and the Wolverine/Jean Gray/Cyclops love triangle grows richer and more complicated.
"It feels like the next stage of the X-Men movies," said James Marsden, better known as the optic-blast wielding Cyclops. "It doesn't feel like a sequel. It feels like a new episode."
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Photo: 20th Century Fox
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