My favorite of the franchise.

I hesitate to call X2 the best superhero sequel, because I haven't seen them all, and some I haven't seen in years upon years.

But after said hesitation, I'm going to go ahead and do it anyway. Everyone in the ensemble gets a character moment, the set-pieces are beyond thrilling, and it has a thematic coherency and poignancy that propels it to a genre classic.

X2, you should have been the Wrath Of Khan style jumping off point for the ensemble franchise to define a decade. You didn't get that, but you still get my vote.

Definitely the best of the initial X-Men trilogy, but I think X-Men: First Class is the best X-Men film so far, period. But back to this one, it's still awesome. While Bryan Singer's first film in this series is good, this one just outdoes it in every way. The action is bigger and more exciting, the script is more interesting, the dilemmas of the characters start growing and of course, Wolverine is more of a force of nature. I've always liked how the central theme of these X-Men movies has been acceptance; it's a simple, yet relevant matter that gives these films a bit more punch, especially when the movies are well-handled as a whole. Such is the case for X2.

Bryan Singer's sequel is everything you want from a follow up. Its bigger, bolder and more exciting.
Singer takes time to explore his characters and deepen the world he is creating. Visually the film continues to stay within the realms of plausibility and offers a more muted colour palette. Singer composes a nice shot, but it is the action scenes that he has improved upon since the last film. Nightcrawler's introduction is easily the highlight, but the siege at the mansion, Mystique doing her thing and the Deathstrike/Wolverine fight are also thrilling.
The cast are on top form with Hugh Jackman, Brian Cox, Ian McKellen and Rebecca Romijn being the stand outs. The plot is engaging and whizzes by at a nice pace.
It has drama, emotion, action and a little humour. A near perfect sequel and the benchmark for the franchise.

Definitely the best of the initial X-Men trilogy, but I think X-Men: First Class is the best X-Men film so far, period. But back to this one, it's still awesome. While Bryan Singer's first film in this series is good, this one just outdoes it in every way. The action is bigger and more exciting, the script is more interesting, the dilemmas of the characters start growing and of course, Wolverine is more of a force of nature. I've always liked how the central theme of these X-Men movies has been acceptance; it's a simple, yet relevant matter that gives these films a bit more punch, especially when the movies are well-handled as a whole. Such is the case for X2.

Takes the strong points from the first one and improves on all of them.
Ending was a bit stretched and the underground lab/maze thing was a boring set piece. Favorite moment: Iceman cooling Wolverine's drink.

A sequel that surpasses the first!

Pretty good. Alan Cumming is delightful as Nightcrawler and the movie does a good job of advancing the personal stories of all the principal characters in the ongoing game of chess between Charles Xavier and Erik Lehnsherr, and in this case a third party, William Stryker. But as ever, the humans are hopelessly outgunned and this superpowered brawl comes down to the question faced by every American civil rights movement of the last sixty years: do we work to integrate with the status quo, or do we disrupt it by force and take it for ourselves? The X-Men films are never as compelling as when the viewer finds themselves wondering if they, too, wouldn't go with Magneto.

*Watched with Rifftrax. What’s great about X2 is that it has some pretension, it tries to be more than another action film and it succeeds. There is actually some intelligence behind it and I really appreciated that. The action is much better in this film as well; I think they realized how clunky the fighting was in X-Men and with the help of CGI made this a lot better and faster. I liked Nightcrawler but some of the Storm/Nightcrawler subplot felt unnecessary and was only in there to appease Halle Berry just won an Oscar and wanted out of her contract.

Bryan Singer used what he had learned in the first X-Men film to improve the sequel significantly. Gone are most of the problems from the first film; action sequences are clearer, the dialogue is less clunky and the special effects are much better. The acting remains top notch, and Singer now seems more comfortable adding in other mutants, although he doesn't go overboard with new characters.

This movie also keeps everything that made the first movie good; the acting is still top notch (and Halle Berry is much improved), the plot still holds together well and there is still a message in this film, one that is probably stronger and more thought out than in the first film. We also get a much better understanding of how mutants interact with the outside world and the film operates on a larger scale. Great stuff all around.

I so love love this sequel, it was mind blowing and my pants were blown as well

not as spooky as i remember it but still a solid superhero movie

I'm just not of fan of the X-Men films, I find the 90's cartoon series much more enjoyable. IMO the X-Men just don't translate well to live action.