Just got back from seeing X-Men II with JB. The motivation for wanting to see this movie was to see a good action flick and to feel like the summer has arrived, but surprisingly there was actually a story and interesting characters in the film. Despite the fact that there were about ten main characters the writers and director somehow fully developed each one (except for the antagonist and Halle Barry) to the point where they became more than just two-dimensional figures on the screen. When Kurt Wagner is sitting in the church talking about faith it adds a new dimension to a creature who lives a tortured life; when Bobby leaves his family you sense what a defining moment it is for him; and as Jean Gray deals with her demons the struggle is evident. I won’t spoil it for anyone who hasn’t seen the film, but I’m hard-pressed to think of any other recent action film where every character was memorable — even in the Lord of the Rings Merry, Pippin and Gimli were little more than comic relief and Legolas was never developed completely. X-Men II will probably be another one that gets added to the DVD collection, and I’ll be looking forward to finding out what happens to these character in the next film in the series.
"My life amounts to no more than one drop in a limitless ocean. Yet what is any ocean, but a multitude of drops?" — David Mitchell