The Snook and I finally saw X-Men 2 last night. It rocked! I was surprised afterwards to realize that my favorite mutant is now definitely Mystique. [Spoiler alert from this point on!] She’s smart, she’s sexy, she kicks ass, and she’s not afraid to be herself. Yeah, sure, she’s a villain and all, but I’ll take her over Halle Berry any day. I had a few questions though for you fan-boy types: What exactly was up with the metal Mystique injected into the security guard? How did it get past the scanner? Also – why didn’t Iceman freeze the dam before it ruptured? Wouldn’t that have given them more time? (I don’t think it would have helped, but the Snook disagrees.) And who was the big guy that covered himself with metal? Why isn’t he a grown-up X-Man? Is he just an older kid? Lastly, what was up with that Lady Deathstrike chick? We haven’t seen any other mutants that have “duplicate” powers, but evidently it’s possible. We saw that Stryker was controlling her with his weird acid stuff, but it seemed to wear off on Cyclops pretty quick. Why couldn’t Wolverine do the same rather than killing her? Maybe she could’ve been redeemed.
I think I’m going to have to see it again…
Tricia
May 22, 2003 — 3:58 pm
I’m not a fan boy, but Mystique injected the guard with more iron, so that that he had iron-rich blood (like the anti-anemic), which would have gotten through the metal detector w/o problem (we all have a lot in our blood, anyway), and Magneto was able to concentrate the Fe into those pellets. I also wondered why Iceman didn’t freeze the dam. The big guy in the mansion who helped the kids out was Colossus, which I only know by looking at a link that Ernie (lyd) posted a few weeks ago. I think that the acid stuff had to be injected on a regular basis, so the deathstrike chick was frequently dosed, but they must have caught Cyclops when he was due for his next shot.
That’s all I know, other than the fact that I was surprised at how much I liked X2, too; much more than I liked the first movie. I’m ready to see it again.
robert
May 22, 2003 — 5:34 pm
yeah, it definitely was colossus. i also thought about freezing the dam, but just considered that maybe as iceman is still a kid that he possibly hasn’t fully developed his pwers enough to do something of that magnitude. they did slightly waste lady deathstryke, but overall i feel that x2 falls into that rare category of film where the sequel is better than the original!
Kris
May 22, 2003 — 6:43 pm
That’s what I figured, but is that really possible, Tricia? I mean, I didn’t think that the iron in your blood was exactly the same as, like, iron filings. Besides, the stuff she injected him with was liquid. The Snook (who is a chemistry nerd) says that iron has to be very very hot to be liquid. I suppose it might have been some solution with iron suspended in it. My point is, that part was neat but it kinda distracted me from the story by trying to figure out exactly what she’d done.
So is Colossus not a full X-Man yet? It just seemed weird that there was this other adult-lookin’ guy there that WASN’T part of the team.
John
May 23, 2003 — 8:46 am
As far as freezing the dam goes, I took it that the sheer quantity of water and the pressures involved made it beyond Iceman’s capacity. However, one online review I read suggested that if you look closely at the dam in one or two of the shorts before it gives way there are signs that it had been frozen in order to keep it together that little bit longer. I can’t say that I noticed myself – and don’t think that’s something which should have been done entirely off-camera – but I’m certainly going to look more closely next time round.
As for Lady Deathstrike, did Wolverine know about the mind-controlling drug? I don’t think we saw him being told about it, though I suppose that Magneto and Mystique could have mentioned it offscreen during the planning for the attack.
In any case, given that Wolverine was in a berserker rage during the fight and was up against an opponent who could regenerate like him and who was doing her best to turn his torso into a pincushion I think he had other priorities than holding her down until the drug wore off…
Kris
May 23, 2003 — 12:14 pm
Very good point, John. And I’m going to try hard to work the phrase “berserker rage” into conversation today. 🙂
John
May 23, 2003 — 10:29 pm
Just as long as you don’t actually find yourself *in* a beserker rage…
Kevin
May 25, 2003 — 4:45 pm
In the comics, Colossus is a full-fledged member of the X-Men. I’m not sure why he became Steel Babysitter in the movie, but it was nice to see him nonetheless, if only for a brief moment. (He’s also Russian in the comic book, not from LA.)
I presume Iceman didn’t freeze the dam because he’s just a kid in the movies, as others have said. Besides, Jean Grey had to do her thing anyway, to set up the Phoenix storyline for X3 (still widely considered the high point of the X-Men run.)
As for Deathstrike, I think it was a mistake killing her…very Batman-esque. But she’s hardly one of the X-Men’s biggest foes or anything…more a character given Wolvie powers to play off Wolviemania.
X3…more Kitty Pryde, more Colossus, and the Danger Room!
grandpa_joe
May 26, 2003 — 10:34 am
Colossus isn’t a full X-man in the film because there are too many of them as it is, so it makes sense to introduce new ones slowly and subtly rather than giving them a whole storyline of their own. Because then the film would be about seven hours long, since there are seven million X-people.
I’m sure the actor who plays Colossus has signed up for several movies, and will get a bigger role next time.
Other X-Men in X2 but not in the full squad (that I noticed), Jubilee (the girl who talks to Professor X at the end), Gambit (just a name on a screen) and Beastman (in in human form, on the telly in a bar).
Gambit will surely get up to all sorts of explosive antics in X3, or it won’t be any good.
Anonymous
June 2, 2003 — 12:58 pm
X3…Jean Grey’s finally going to get a code name. Did you see the shape of a Phoenix cast across the water at the end?