Hey folks, Harry here with a pair of very nice, very spoilerfic looks at the X-MEN 2 novelization by Chris Claremont of the screenplay, which was adapted from his own work... Hmmm, should be interesting. Imagine Melville adapting Bradbury's Screenplay from Melville's original novel... that'd be something to write home about... Hehehehe... Well, here it is. Now just because it is in the novelization, it doesn't mean it is in the film... and there could very well be surprises in the film that are not in the book... Strange things abound with adaptations. Here ya go....
Dear Harry:
I wrote in before with my novelization review of the Daredevil movie. I was meandering around the same store today and saw the X-Men 2 novelization. Thought I'd toss another review your way - use it if you want :) Call me Miss Edith.
From the front of the book, the writing credits: A novelization by Chris Claremont (God Loves, Man Kills, of course) based on the motion picture screenplay. Story by Bryan Singer & David Hayter and Zak Penn. Screenplay by Dan Harris & Mike Dougherty.
And warning - this will be spoilerish - but I'll try and highlight the doozies so folks can avoid them (or find them) as they wish.
Initial reaction: Decent storyline, not what I was expecting, but still good. Initial couple chapters made me think we were totally borrowing from today's terrorism headlines, but the movie deviates later. It starts off a few months after the events of the first movie.
STORY SUMMARY
It kicks off with a bang - or perhaps more accurately, *bamf.* Nightcrawler, incognito (yes, he is), prowls along on a White House tour. The group moves to go through a security checkpoint and he pops out of line, starting a gunbattle, eventually taking on most of the Secret Service. He does get into the President's office and knifes him. (Incidentally, the book describes the President as a cowboy, more comfortable with steers than policy. Remind you of anybody?) The fight, if played generally as written, should be AMAZING on screen.
In the wake of the attack, William Stryker persuades the president to allow him to "question" the mutants at Xavier's school. I don't think it specifies, but he's CIA/FBI/NSA - some of the same folks who had their butts in slings following Sept. 11.
"Sir, if we'd only been allowed to do our jobs before the attack..." Stryker says at one point.
Sen. Robert Kelly is in the same meeting and stands up for the mutants.
Meanwhile the students of Xavier's school are all at a museum, taking in an exhibit of man's evolution. Seems like a poignant (if somewhat heavy-handed) retread of X-Men themes moment.
Rogue, Iceman and Pyro have some storyline here - having a fight with some other teens, Pyro starting a boy on fire, Iceman cooling him off, one of the other teens touching Rogue's skin.
Logan shows up at the mansion again and gets cordially invited to "babysit" the students. He has had some flashes of memory, but still has not regained it.
Xavier and Cyclops head off to see Magneto; Jean and Storm to meet and recruit Nightcrawler.
Meanwhile, Stryker's troops invade the school. And (pardon the language, Harry), Holy Shit, this should ROCK on screen. Many of the mutants we know and love appear here, and use their powers. Wow. Awesome to read, should be mind-blowing onscreen. Logan does his best berserker, a fan favorite (see spoilers) is a hero, and so much more. Connections between characters, here, are a bit of a surprise surprise.
Of course, the team (including Magneto) joins together to battle this new menace - Stryker and Lady Deathstrike, two lethal powers.
Interesting parallels drawn between Magneto and Xavier when Magneto marshalls the X-Men to Stryker's lab.
Fights: Jean/Scott - hints of Phoenix force, I think, despite the timeline differences; Wolverine/Lady Deathstrike; Storm/Nightcrawler vs. Xavier/Mutant 143... there's some doozies.
Then through Stryker's manipulations, Xavier turns Cerebro's powers against the mutants of the world. It's an amazing sequence in the book - if it's not jawdropping on screen, it's only director's fault.
And Mystique, of course, plays a role throughout.
REAX (Spoilers contained):
Again, not unlike the first movie, I don't feel like this has the best of plots. It certainly doesn't suck, but I wish I was more familiar with Claremont's work this is supposedly based on to say for sure. With the main reason for Stryker's anti-mutant sentiment being that Xavier refused to take out a mutant gene from his son, that just didn't quite fly right with me. If this is a metaphor of sorts for discrimination, I don't buy it as a means of sending somebody over to the Dark Side. That said, the story itself flows nicely, has a nice blend of action, comedy and drama, and gives more of a view of all of the X-Men than the last one. Again, though, Wolverine remains toward the forefront. Fight scenes play off very dynamically, and Nightcrawler is wonderful throughout. Had an odd sense they were hinting at the Phoenix force, but as I mentioned before, I don't see how that harmonizes with this storyline. That said, I still like it very much and will scamper to see it opening day or as soon as I can.
I really liked the novelization of the original movie, and felt that was a really strong film, filling out the storylines of many of the X-Men (more of Storm's past, more of Magneto's). The cuts in the version that screened left some question marks in my mind and didn't flow together in quite a reasonable fashion. If this film is cut in similar ways from the book, I don't think I'll like it quite as much either.
But all in all, an excellent read, and I'm thinking will be a good show at the box office.
FOR THE HARDCORE SPOILER WHORES:
Cameos -
In some early scenes at the school:
Siryn and Jamie Madrox - should be a funny spot there. She offers him flowers and Jamie sneezes, setting off his doubles. She sees them for the first time and screams, shattering all the glass within earshot. Colossus - He makes a cameo when Rogue and Iceman are on a couch kind of flirting. He's drawing them.
In the school fight: Kitty Pryde (she phases), Siryn, Iceman (using his powers), Colossus (he morphs and helps lead one group of kids to safety), Pyro, Jamie Madrox, Jubilee (powers ahoy, except she seems to funnel electricity), Rahne Sinclair (?), Rogue,
Brief cameo: Hank McCoy
Dark Cerebro effects: Beast (transformed), Gambit (in a casino) and Betsy Braddock modeling.
SPOILERS END
Well, until the day it shows up on screen, keep making mine Marvel!
Next up is an EXTREMELY HEAVY SPOILER REVIEW.... Proceed with great caution!!!
Hey AICN:
This isn't the first time I send something in, but if you use it, it will be the first time something has been posted. I'm here with a spolier-filled review of the XMen 2 novel. But first, lemme bring you guys up to speed.
As a kid, I'd say I was a fan of the XMen comic books. Not an avid fan, but I read pretty much all the X-Books (Uncanny Xmen, Xmen, Weapon X, etc.). I have a passing knowledge of the characters and history. I thought the XMen animated series that ran on Fox in the mid nineties was great. Finally, I thought the first XMen movie itself was very good, one of the best comic book films to date. The casting was dead on, the direction was slick, the tone and feel was very adult and serious, which made it seem like a "real" sci-fi flick and not a kiddie comic book flick. I liked that the story was a little more intimate than the flicks featuring the other big boys of comics. And yes, I thought it was better than Spider-man.
That said, I'll move onto the XMen 2 book review. You guys may know some, if not all, of this stuff already. I'm not gonna give u a page by page description, but I'll give out some key plot points, character beats, action sequences, etc. and my thoughts about them.
The story occurs a few months after the first movie, and starts off with Nightcrawler's assault on the White House. This should be a very cool scene if handled right. His assault causes hatred for mutants to flare up anew. We then move onto the Natural Museum of History, where the XMen are taking their younger charages for a tour of the exhibits. We are reintroduced to all the characters. Storm is still proud, Cyclops still loves Jean Grey, and Jean Grey is struggling with her ever growing powers and her affection for Logan. We are also reintroduced to Rouge (still self concious over her imprinting power) and Iceman (still with a crush for Rouge). We're also introduced to a new character at this point, Pyro. I'm sure you can guess what his power is. I liked the way he was handled. He's basically Anakin Skywalker with a Zippo lighter.
Wolverine meanwhile is off searching for clues to his past in an old military base that holds some characteristics slash marks that he assumes he may have caused. Back at the White House, the president is holding a special meeting with a General William Stryker. Right off the bat, his character was well handled. He was defintiely a worthy human villain for the XMen to face. Stryker has a hot Asian bodyguard (played by Kelly Hu) named Yuriko who is the Darth Maul of this story. She doesn't say much, but when she does something, it's pretty awe-inspiring. Also present at the meeting is Senator Richard Kelly, who if you remember from the first flick, is really Mystique the shape-shifter in disguise. Stryker proposes the "seizure and interrogation" operation of a school of mutants who he suspects are being trained for battle in secret. The president grudgingly agrees.
Back at the school we are briefly introduced to a few members that will have a lasting effect in the XMen universe in the future (at least in the comics), namely Siryn, Kitty Pride, Jubilee, and Colossus. They don't have big parts, but just knowing that they're there is pretty cool. So anyway Logan arrives back at the school, still frustrated that he's found no answers. Rouge is happy to see him, and so is Jean Grey. There's a nicely written little scene at this point that illustrates their sexual attraction, and shows the results this has on Cyclops.
Meanwhile Professor X, through Cerebro, has found the location of Nightcrawler the mutant assassin. So he sends Storm and Jean Grey off to track Nightcrawler down in the Blackbird, while he and Cyclops decide to pay Magneto a visit to see what he knows about all this. Logan is left alone in charge of the school. Storm and Jean track down Nightcrawler in Boston at an abandoned church. Xavier and Cyclops are ambushed by Stryker and Yuriko at Magneto's prison (there is a cool fight scene between Cyclops and Yuriko at this point by the way). Meanwhile, Stryker's soldiers attack the school.
For me, this was the best sequence in the story. If everything that is written makes its way to the screen, then this is gonna be one kick ass sequence. Wolverine just kicks ass all over the place. He actually kills alot of soldiers too, something which I found pretty daring for the writers to have a comic book hero do in this day and age. We get to see most of the various students use their powers. However the scene I cant wait to see is when Colossus transforms into his metal skin and leads most of the kids out through some tunnels. As described, it was just geeky coolness.
Wolverine, Iceman, Rouge, and Pyro escape in one of Cyclops' souped up cars. At this point, I had my first major problem with the story. Colossus and the rest of the esaped kids are basically left on their own. There is no mention of them for the rest of the story. I can't believe that Logan would just drive away and not at least worry aloud about the kids. But anyways, Stryker inspects the school, and has his men dissassemble Cerebro. We learn that the soldiers have captured six mutants, Jubilee among them. Professor X and Cyclops are taken to the secret military base that Logan visited at the start of the story, which also doubles as Stryker's base. Cerebro is taken there as well, as part of Stryker's evil scheme.
At this point, I'm just gonna wrap it up, because there's just too much to explain. Over the course of the story, we learn that Stryker is connected to Wolverine's past, Xavier once helped Stryker's mutant son, and Stryker is using said mutant son to gain control over Xavier and get him to use Cerebro to kill all the mutants. Very cool plot thread number one: the Xmen, Magneto, and Mystique team up and assault Stryker's base. Very cool plot thread number two: Cyclops has been injected with the mind control drug and he and Jean have a cool battle near the end. Very cool plot thread number three: Throughout the course of the story, Magneto pulls an Emperor and "seduces" Pyro to the "dark side" of the mutant conflict. Pyro leaves with him and Mystique instead of with the Xmen at the end of the story.There are various cool fight scenes, including said Xmen/Magneto team up against the soldiers, the Blackbird versus some F-16s, Pyro using his powers on some cops, Mystique versus some of Stryker's soldiers, and the Wolverine/Yuriko fight from the trailers.
When Xavier actually begins to use Cerebro to locate and kill every mutant on the planet, we are given some cool imagery as well, including cameos by the Beast and Gambit! Now, I'm not sure if all of this sequence is going to make it onto the screen or if some of of it was fanboy wet dreams, but it was still cool nonetheless.
Random thoughts: I was surprised to see that Jean Grey got alot of the spotlight, as her powers become stronger over the course of the story. She gets almost as much screentime, if not AS much, as Wolverine. There was also some foreshadowing of the Dark Phoneix storyline peppered through out, mostly in the visual descriptions of her powers. I don't know if the Dark Phoenix stuff was in the script, or how much of itt will reach the screen but it was cool to read nonetheless. Yuriko has a healing power like Wolverine...nice! There was no Danger room, and no Sentinels. Maybe in part three...hopefully in part three.
Major Problem with the story: up until the Xmen go to rescue Xavier and stop Stryker at his secret base, I was loving the story. I loved the characters, if not always their dialouge. The saracastic Wolverine humor was still present. The action was cool. However, once they reach the base, it seems that they are there forever. And..I dunno, maybe it was the author's fault, maybe he got too carried away with his descriptions, but Jesus it seems like they are in that base forever. At the point where the Wolverine/Yuriko fight ends, and the dam that borders the secret base started to crack open, my heart kinda sunk, because NOTHING HAPPENS for like the next fifty pages. The action just kinda fizzles out. It just seems like more coulda been done with this section of the story. We've seen all of this before, especially the whole "escape from the crumbling base" deal. Yes, the way that Cerebro was utilized as a genocidal tool was very cool and the way that Magneto turned it around against the humans was even cooler (wow I use the word cool alot), and yes the fight scenes were great in this section but..I dunno I was expecting more from the third act. Instead I got nothing original. I also wanted there to be more mutant against mutant fights, like in the first movie. Sure, beating up soliders is great, but you know that the mutants will always win because..well, they're mutants. Maybe I'll shut my mouth when I see it all on screen, maybe it will all play out better, and maybe the whole third act will have better pacing, but as written it got pretty frustrating. I hope it was just a case of an author's self indulgence and that he was just trying to get as much mileage out of his story as possilbe. I mean, he strecthed what's sure to be a two hour movie (which would be like 120 pages) into 400 plus pages, and it got pretty tedious to read at times.
Final thoughts: Overall, it was an entertaining story. There were some spectacular set pieces sprinkled throughout. The highlight was definitely the school assault. However, things became too ordinary and kinda fizzled out in the third act, when I was expecting greatness, or at least originality. It wasn't enough to cancel everything else out, but I was slightly disappointed by the third act. As a movie however, where things are faster paced and special effects take over, maybe it'll work. But, the character stuff remains strong throughout, no one is underused (except maybe Cyclops) and when XMEN 2 comes out in May I'm sure it'll be a great addition to the Marvel film Library.
-Joey Joe Joe Junior Shabadoo.
