This sequel actually lived up to the hype of the first X-Men movie and more. The same X-Men characters are returning: Jean Grey, Rogue, Cyclops, Prof. X, Storm, Ice Man and even Wolverine. Some of the original bad guys are still there: Magneto and Mystique. But there is no longer Toad or Sabretooth. Instead, we have Nightcrawler, a glimpse of Shadowkitty and Collossus and Pyro, who starts off on the good side but decides to go with Magneto in the end.
The story behind this sequel (and why it's called X2:X-Men United) is that a third party- neither good nor bad in terms of X-Men- has a plan to eliminate all mutants. Once they find this out, the X-Men must unite with the bad guy mutants and prevent this from happening.
It's a great plot, and it even has a nice underlying theme of Wolverine's origin. The fight scenes are great and I've actually gone to see this movie in the theater twice already.
The two things that stand out most in this movie, to me, are Magneto and Nightcrawler. There's one scene where Magneto actually uses his power to pull all of the pins out of some grenades on some soldiers, so they basically just blow up attached to these guys' vests! It was insanely clever, whoever came up with that idea.
Then the power of Nightcrawler. Man, I'd watch a whole movie just based on this guy. The way he teleported, the effects and smoke he left behind, and how he did it so quickly at times, that alone made it all worthwhile.
