So, although this movie started with a bang (quite a few, actually), it didn't measure up to the first one. There was much more action and thrilling footage, but the overall plot was more dry than it should have been. In the beginning of the film, a teleporting German mutant, Kurt Wagner, aka Nightcrawler Alan Cumming, attempts to assassinate the U.S. President McKenna (Cotter Smith), but fails. The X-Men, led by Professor Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart), sets out to track down the sneaky mutant and discover his intentions. When they finally catch him, they find out that he was being controlled (against his will) by a mysterious organization (obviously with evil intentions). Meanwhile, a government official, William Stryker (Brian Cox) gains authority from the government to investigate the mutant problem and begins his research by raiding Xavier's school and capturing Xavier himself. A small band of mutants escape, including Logan, aka Wolverine (Hugh Jackman), Rogue (Anna Paquin), Bobby Drake, aka Iceman (Shawn Ashmore), and John Allerdyce, aka Pyro (Aaron Stanford). After joining up with Jean Grey, Ororo Munroe, aka Storm (Halle Berry), and Nightcrawler (who weren't at the school at the time), the team of remaining X-Men decide to try to rescue the captured mutants. However, they cannot do it alone, so they join forces with Eric Lensherr, aka Magneto (Ian McKellen), and Mystique (Rebecca Romijn). Along the way, Wolverine will also discover more about his unrecallable past, which is basically as dark as we all suspected, after seeing the first X-Men. X2 has almost as many plot twists as the first one, which at least keep you interested (if all the fighting doesn't do it for you). There really isn't much keeping kids from seeing it, unless they've never seen violence before... I guess that's it....
