Box Office Pulp | Film Analysis, Movie Retrospectives, Commentary Tracks, Comedy, And More

Escalation. Since the discovery of the formula, superhero movies have known it to be the secret to their survival. The debate rages: Do audiences want more action and a grander scale the second time around, or a more personal experience with these characters? Either way, it is a historical fact: X2: X-Men United had it both ways. The academy's sophomore outing attempted to adapt God Loves, Man Kills, delve into Wolverine's origins at Weapon X, unravel a presidential assassination conspiracy, set up the Dark Phoenix Saga, AND be a sequel to the original film, and by some miracle of mutation it all worked out. In BOP n' A Movie's second installment of our X-Men commentary series, we examine how this jam-packed screenplay updates the mutant metaphor for the Bush era, and how its structure gave us the blueprint for the modern team-up movie, before we wonder at the Munich circus's own Incredible Nightcrawler, witness the origin of Michael Dougherty, and once again lament how little James Marsden has to do.SCREAM "