X2: X-Men United Critic Reviews

Mr. Singer and his collaborators grasp that comic books, for all their obligatory fights and explosions, are at bottom about their brave, troubled, impossibly muscled characters. Read the full review

My chief complaint is that these mutants are a little--well, vanilla. I wish the X-Men had a touch of kinkiness to go with their weird abilities. Read the full review

Visually, X2 is a sight to behold, with impressive special effects and a dynamic sense of place.Read the full review

All the same, X2 and recent action adventures like it constitute a mutation in their own right: fast-paced, slow-witted movies in which the impact is the message; impersonal movies that deny any need for characterization; disjointed movies that make no apologies -- and pay no penalties -- for making no sense. Their special gift is giving little and getting a lot.Read the full review

Directed with depth, efficiency, and wit by Bryan Singer, the film suffered only from a tendency to seem like a setup for an even bigger movie...Fortunately, bigger usually equals better here, and when it doesn't, it equals just as good.Read the full review

Brisk and involving with a streamlined forward propulsion, it's the kind of superhero movie we want if we have to have superhero movies at all. Read the full review

X2 sparkles with a lightness of spirit that was missing from ''X-Men.'' Read the full review

The fantastic and at times deliciously nihilistic world of X2 is fully, believably three-dimensional. Read the full review

The movie is overplotted, a soulless maze of special effects and relentless action. Read the full review