I've decided to do something kind of new with this review. Usually, when I'm going to review a movie and I actually liked it, I see it twice, to make sure I get everything. But my first viewing of X2 left quite a lot to be desired, as in: I'd like to see it again, so that I can see the movie.

Tickets were ordered in advance; dinner was not, and we got there late. Therefore, my girlfriends and I were forced to take seats in the second row, against the left wall, and I couldn't see the screen very well. However, we were…fortunate…enough to be right beside a speaker, so we certainly heard the movie. In fact, we heard it so well we could barely hear each other for a couple hours afterwards.

Basically, what I got first time around was straight story, with no special effects, or at least, not the full impact of them. I'm sure the Wolverine/Deathstrike fight was beyond awesome, but by that point in the movie, I had lost all feeling in the right side of my body, and couldn't crane my neck enough to get a good look at anything.

My second trip to see X2 was, well…

Okay, so I didn't get a chance to go. I have all sorts of good excuses, from dentist appointments to needing a manicure to having my behind surgically grafted to my couch, but hey, at least I went once, right? And that leads us to the "something new" part: a review after just a single viewing of a movie I'd like to have seen twice.

Unlike most other comic book movies, I actually know something about X-Men. I'm able to watch students wandering about the school and correctly identify them as future X-Men, saying, "Ooh, that's Jubilee!" along with everyone else. This makes me happy. I can not only pick out the hot guy in the boxers, but I can also identify him as the future Colossus. I can watch Nightcrawler look like he's about to get all up on Mystique and have the proper reaction: "Ewww, that's your MOM, dude!!" I know what Department H is, and all the neat stuff that goes with it. I enjoy knowing stuff in advance, but here's the cool part:

I don't always mind when it gets changed.

You may revoke my Geek Guild membership now. I haven't read Tolkein, and I think it's occasionally okay to change from a radioactive spider to a genetically-engineered one.

But, I do know why Jimmy Smits was standing in the background in Episode II, and what the Botany Bay is, so I'm not a total loss. But, I forget…I'm supposed to be reviewing, here.

There was certainly a little more of a plot this time around. Don't get me wrong; I'm a fan of the first movie, but it was more of a "Hey, look at us, we're the X-Men!" kind of flick than a "Look at this meaningful and socially-conscious story line that just happens to have superheroes in it!" one. The basic story in Round Two is there's a bad guy inside the U.S. Government using mutants for his own ends, and the X-Men and the Brotherhood of Mutants (which is really only two people at this point) must team up to neutralize the threat.

The good guys are pretty much the same as before: Professor X (Patrick Stewart), Wolverine (Hugh Jackman), Jean Grey (Famke Janssen), Cyclops (James Marsden), Storm (Halle Berry), and Rogue (Anna Paquin). Iceman (Shawn Ashmore) gets to be important this time around, and the addition of Nightcrawler (Alan Cumming) provides me with the happy coincidence of one of my favorite superheroes and one of my favorite actors all rolled into one.

On the dark side, we have the ever-popular Magneto (Sir Ian McKellen—that "Sir" is very important), the heavily-latexed Mystique (Rebecca Romijn-Stamos, who actually gets to appear as her normal self in a scene), and the new addition of Pyro (Aaron Stanford). Pyro is a student at the Xavier school, and appears to be on the good side for most of the film, but hey, Magneto's on the good side for most of the film, and anybody who knows the comics knows that Pyro's going to turn bad. I'm not wrecking anything by telling you that. And besides, it's foreshadowed to the moon and back in the movie itself.

The real bad guy this time around is a government official of some sort named William Stryker (Brian Cox), who has a history with more than one of the X-Men. He's also got a mutant "secretary" (Kelly Hu), known privately as Lady Deathstrike. He's bad. He's evil. His facial hair alone will tell you that.

The movie begins with a very cool attack on the President, right in the Oval Office. (And this is not me approving of attacking the President! This is me approving of a fictional genetic mutant with blue skin and the ability to teleport, attacking a fictional president. End disclaimer.) From that moment on, the whole show is really a nice rollercoaster ride. The thrills thrill, the fights looked good from an oblique angle, and you can always count on Wolverine for some sort of quip when you most need it.

Unfortunately, there was one scene that went a little too far. Now, I understand it's difficult for poor Cyclops to cry whilst wearing a banana clip on his face, but the facial contortions he substituted for tears just made what should have been at least a moderately sad moment into something downright embarrassing.

To sum up, X2 was good from any angle. In addition to making me happy in a comic book-y manner, it was also a well-put-together movie. I didn't walk away thinking there were holes, or anything left unexplained. Instead, I walked away thinking, "That definitely deserves four doors…but we need better seats for Matrix!"