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X2 (2003) Bryan Singer

It had been a few years since seeing X2; I probably should have just watched the movie, but I watched it with the commentary by Bryan Singer and DP Newton Thomas Sigel. I really like X2, and yea I think it’s the best of all the X- movies. It really opens with a bang (or a BAMF!), and while the set pieces are awesome (especially Magneto’s escape and the Lady Deathstrike fight), they don’t overshadow the human (mutant) moments.

I do recommend the commentary. Sigel has a really dry sense of humor, which was fun; his deadpan ridiculous answers to serious questions threw me off a bit at first. Discussions of budgetary considerations were interesting too. I have no idea how much it costs to create a CGI Nightcrawler tail, or to have Anna Paquin get sucked out of the jet, or to film the X Mansion, so it was interesting to understand the decisions that were made. Although X2 had a bigger budget than the first, they still had to cut some corners (for example, they had to use some shots of the mansion from the first film). I also like hearing filmmakers recognize what worked and what didn’t. And it’s fun to know that they used mimes in the scenes where Jean/the Professor freeze people.

#161 - 7/15/2012