So I ran out today to see me some X-Men. I decided to catch a 1:30 show to avoid the crowds over the weekend. Picked me up some wasabi peas and Dr. Pepper. You might be happy to know that I've officially burnt out on the wasabi pea thing. It's officially enough with the wasabi peas. I think we need to separate for like a few months before getting back together. We just need some time apart. I couldn't even eat 1/3rd of em...

Anyway, X2. I was pretty psyched up for this movie. I liked the first X-Men but I wasn't all nuts for it. The previews for X2 looked more kick ass and the previews were right. This movie did kick a substantial amount more of ass. It didn't kick the whole ass but definitely like 1 cheek and 5/8 of the other cheek. The special effects were coolio and at times this flick straight out flew. There are a couple wowee jawdroppers. The story wasn't ridiculous and it stuck to the plotline in a way where it wasn't confusing. The mixture of politics and superherodom works nicely. And although there were alot of characters running around there wasn't the feeling that some were just on screen for the sake of being on screen... because they're a character in the movie. The subplot thingees were reasonable.

But I found this movie lagging a bit too often. The downtime was sometimes too down. The dialogue never sucked me in and I didn't get hit with an 'oooh... cool...' or 'oh! whoa!' outside of the special effects.  I never got emotionally involved. And maybe it's just not possible without being a real X-Men comic book fan. I never went in on the X-Men comics. I always respected Wolverine from a distance but I wasn't interested in the other characters. And this movie reminded me why. Some of em strike me as a kinda silly. Cyclops with his jordyesque laserbeam sunglasses? Iceman? Or names like Magneto or Pryo or Cerebro? It's almost too cartoony. Of course, Wolverine is a frickin rockstar and his big fight scene rocks hugely. But alot of the other mutants simply don't do it for me. Some do. Some don't. Nightcrawler done did. Totally. 2x quick.

The one mutant that annoyed me throughout was Halle Berry's character 'Storm'. She was a mutant among the mutants. Maybe it's her superstardom that makes her distracting but every time she walked on the screen I'd think. Oh look. Halle Berry. In a wig. Ok you can go away now. Her subpar acting didn't help break her away from who she is..... unlike Hot Stuff Baby This Evening Rebecca Romaine Lettuce Stamos. I felt there was a soul to her character. She seemed to be grooving on it and her outfit was... whoa. But Halle? She looked hot enough but she didn't seem to really want to be there.

Three Good Things About this Movie

- Both Professor Xavier and Magneto old warhorse thing works so well. You gotta dig that mix..
- I was surprised with so much storyline that the movie just didn't completely trip all over itself and pratfall.
- Hot Stuff Baby This Evening Rebecca Romaine Lettuce Stamos. I dug her 'special effects' more than the special effects.

Three Bad Things About this Movie

- It ran a little long. They could have chopped 15 minutes off of it and I would have been happier.
- At the halfway point I knew it already missed the opportunity to be great.
- When the mutants run away from stuff here and there. You're like, 'Why are you running? Do your thing!'

This movie does a nice job of setting itself up for X-3 (this whole movie is kind of a preview) so that's coolio. Now if they could just get past the 'pretty frickin cool...' and get started with some greatness I'll be a happy kid. It's not there yet but it's good to see they're moving in the right direction. So we'll see.

But first things first... put Halle 'Fred' Berry's character on an icefloe and shove her off screen to make giant hail in the artic circle to fight some evil mutant doing global warming or whatever. That would be cool.... unfortunately I'm sure they'll call that mutant 'Globowarmo' or something dopey like that.




ps. check out their crazy flash site.