“Mutant freedom now.”
The Big Picture
- The X-Men’s popularity is surging once more with the record-breaking
Deadpool & Wolverine
trailer and the successful
X-Men ’97
series. - Early
X-Men
movies like
X2: X-Men United
helped solidify the success of superhero movie franchises. - Nightcrawler’s iconic opening scene in
X2
showcases the power and impact of mutant abilities.
We could be on the brink of a new golden age for the X-Men, in the realm of media adaptations. With the Deadpool & Wolverine trailer breaking the record for most viewed Youtube trailer of all time, and the animated Disney+ series X-Men ’97 vastly overshooting the expectations people had for the show. The appetite for the fan-favorite superhero team – an ever resonant metaphor for the marginalized – has been on a high. If Marvel Studios can keep this momentum up till when they can properly reboot the X-Men and bring them into the MCU, then they could near or even surpass the heights of the first two Fox X-Men films. Those films were instrumental in solidifying superhero films as the dominant genre of Hollywood in the 21st century, and they collectively reached their peak with the brilliant opening action scene of the sequel, X2: X-Men United: Nightcrawler’s White House assault.
X2: X-Men United
When anti-mutant Colonel William Stryker kidnaps Professor X and attacks his school, the X-Men must ally with their archenemy Magneto to stop him.
- Release Date
- April 24, 2003
- Director
- Bryan Singer
- Cast
- Patrick Stewart , Hugh Jackman , Ian McKellen , Halle Berry , Famke Janssen , James Marsden
- Runtime
- 133
- Main Genre
- Action
- Writers
- Zak Penn , David Hayter , Bryan Singer , Michael Dougherty , Dan Harris
Nightcrawler’s Actions in the Opening Scene Set Up ‘X2’s Plot
X2 opens with a mysterious man, in a trench coat and ill-fitting baseball cap, stalking his way through the halls of the White House. He not so subtly walks past portraits of former Presidents like Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, and John F. Kennedy, all Presidents that either survived or succumbed to assassination attempts. While intercutting with roving shots of the President (Cotter Smith) working in the Oval Office, the camera covers this mystery man from vantage points that come from natural points of view, usually from the perspectives of security guards, save for a wide overhead shot that mimics a security camera angle. We get a shot from a security guard’s shoulder, watching this man step up to him, posing a potential threat. When the guard asks what he’s doing, a forked tail rises from behind the man’s back. He pounces on the guard, Mozart’s “Requiem in D Minor” kicks off non-diegetically, and we’re off on a wild ride.
With his questionable disguise blown, Nightcrawler flexes his hidden power, using his teleportation and agility to dodge, duck, and dip his way around Secret Service agents. He flips onto walls to evade the terrible Stormtrooper aim of the agents, he whips guns away with his tail, but mostly, he gives Neo a run for his money by poofing out of harm’s way with his inky smoke clouds. For a guy bogged down by a heavy trench coat and a literal tail, he’s impressively limber. X2 came out at a time when big budget movies still valued “the money shot,” proudly showing off the time that went into a shot that lasts all of five seconds, and the sequence climaxes with a series of such. When Nightcrawler finally breaches the Office, we get a four-shot sequence of him dispatching every last gunman with an efficiency and flare for the moment that would impress even John Wick. He leaps onto the President, with a flexible grace that makes you go, “hey, maybe this character was a circus performer in the comics.” He pulls out a dagger with his tail and readies his strike, only to get shot in the arm and teleporting out of the room. We get a close-up of the dagger that has fallen on the President’s desk, and it says “Mutant Freedom Now.”
‘X2’s Opening Scene Establishes the Movie’s Most Prominent Themes
This sequence lasts approximately three minutes, and in that span, it does several important things. First, it establishes the central theme of the story, if not the whole franchise – mutant persecution at the hands of normal society and their fight to be treated fairly. This film specifically tackles a storyline involving a terrorist (Brian Cox) who seeks to eradicate mutantkind from existence due to his hatred and trauma, and this thrusts the political subtext of the story directly into the forefront. It serves as a demonstration of why the larger society would be so terrified of mutants; if just one of them could go rogue and wreak this much havoc against armed security, then that definitely comes across as a problem.
Furthermore, it serves as the action scene that piques the audience’s interest right at the start of the film, preparing viewers for everything that’s to come. Dropping the audience into this scene with no context whatsoever makes it that, even if you were someone who saw the first X-Men, you’d still be surprised. The best action scenes still serve as storytelling, utilizing the action to be in conversation with the underlying narrative and showcasing character work via their behavior in the heat of battle. In this case, the scene actually serves as a misdirection to Nightcrawler’s true character, but we still gain a familiarity of him that makes us more comfortable with him when he comes back around.
‘X2: X-Men United’ Gives Fans a Visceral Feel for Nightcrawler’s Powers
A notable element that X-Men, X2, X-Men: Days of Future Past, and X-Men: Apocalypse have in common is the way those films were able to sell the impact of the powers. It wasn’t enough to simply explain and display the powers, the audience had to practically feel them, using the tools of cinema to emphasize the physical experience of unimaginable gifts. So many current superhero movies no longer place emphasis on the sheer magnitude of these powers; there’s simply no oomph or pizzaz in the unfurling of what these demigods can do. However, these movies, directed by Bryan Singer, sold the hell out of the X-Men’s powers, from the extreme closeup on Wolverine’s (Hugh Jackman) knuckles when his claws first pop out in X-Men to Quicksilver’s now-iconic scene in Days of Future Past, which remains the best display of super speed on film.
What sets the Nightcrawler scene apart from the rest was the synergy of all the featured cinematic elements coming together at such a smooth and rapid pace. It implements CGI to enhance the acrobatics and create his ink smoke clouds, but still clearly implements stunt doubles to pull off the actual important moves, as opposed to today’s common practice of CG doubles for even standard stunts. The needle drop of the Mozart piece isn’t just a way to make the scene feel more dramatic, but it’s specifically associated with Nightcrawler’s presence to create the feeling that he’s a harbinger of doom, as indicated by how John Ottman‘s score comes in to build tension when he isn’t around, only to bring the Mozart back once he makes his return.
‘X2: X-Men United’ Perfectly Adapted This Classic X-Men Storyline
‘X2’ is a great adaptation of one of the best X-Men stories ever.
The camerawork is clear and focused on its framing of the beats, but still works to hide Nightcrawler’s full visage until the grand reveal when he’s crouching over the President, baring his fangs and tattooed blue face. It takes the requisite time to build up the necessary tension, as shown in his hallway entrance and then in the moments when he’s disappeared, allowing the tension to explore and rush forward at a breakneck pace. It’s a lightning-in-a-bottle encapsulation of all that superhero cinema can offer. The Nightcrawler assault in X2 was a symphony of beautifully controlled chaos that still spoke to the core ideas of one of Marvel’s most groundbreaking properties. And in the words of Bong Joon Ho, it was “pure cinema.”
X2: X-Men United is currently streaming on Disney+ in the U.S.
This article was originally published on collider.com