After the success of Bryan Singer’s X-Men, the sequel became inevitable. But what we got not only continued the story but took it to the next level. Because we both love it so much, Citizen-Bot and Swank-motron are going to both offer our thoughts here.

Citizen-Bot: This remains not only my favorite X-Men movie, but one of my favorite superhero movies of all time. It’s in the same pantheon as The Avengers and Spider-Man 2. Having set up their sandbox and characters, they waste no time in playing with them to maximum potential. Of course, I love the fact that three of my favorite characters were featured. Even more than the first film, this was Wolverine’s story, and he gets a lot of opportunity for character growth, especially being put in charge of taking care of a bunch of kids for half the movie.

And then there’s Nightcrawler and Colossus. The opening scene shows what a BAMF (pun fully intended) Kurt Wagner can be, and then the rest of the film he gets to be lovable, funny, and tortured. And when Colossus armors up for the first time during that assault on the school? Still one of my favorite moments of any movie of the franchise. That, and the Wolvie berserker rage that happens during the same sequence.

Swank-Mo-Tron: I don’t think people give enough credit to the X-Men franchise for kicking off this modern era of cinematic super-heroes. And X2 is, perhaps, the best of what Singer had to offer. The first film was clunky in places, but juggled the personalities of the team so that it truly felt like a team picture, but X2 raised the ante on all of that and gave us something truly special. Yes, it might have been a little Wolverine heavy, but would argue that there are many action sequences in the genre that are capably put together as the invasion of the X-Mansion by William Stryker.

And Stryker! Is there a villain my fun to watch than Brian Cox as Stryker? Every line of his is a winner. And he’s played with such a wonderful menace. Who could forget his speech about what his son did to his wife?

This movie, to me, is perfection, both as a film and a monument to some of my favorite superheroes. They’re all given a chance to shine and we see hints and promises of what we are still waiting to see…  Colossus and the Phoenix. And it’s for this reason, that this movie was so good, that we no longer acknowledge the existence of the Ratner-directed followup.

Citizen-Bot: Brian Cox as Stryker.The first X-Men film suffered a little bit from having a weak villain. (Because, as I said previously, Magneto isn’t actually the villain– Senator Kelly is) But with him turned into jelly by Act II, all we have is Magneto using the Statue of Liberty to turn the world’s leaders into mutants so they’d no longer be feared. Yeah, it’s what has to be stopped, but he’s doing it for good reasons.

Swank-Mo-Tron: And can we talk about how stunning the opening assassination sequence is? Because it’s stunning.

Citizen-Bot: Like I said– BAMF. But, yeah, how that’s shot– the quick-moving tracking sequence. It’s so kinetic, and even though it’s fast-moving, you can still very easily follow what’s going on. There’s a lot of sequences like that in this film: Magneto’s escape from his plastic prison, Mystique breaking into Stryker’s base, the military assault on the school, the jet fight where (again, Nightcrawler) we have Rogue getting sucked out and then teleporting in and out of the jet. All of these are amazing action sequences. In most great action films you get one or two of these. In this case, we get all of them.

But then there are the small moments as well. We get to see Rogue and Bobby trying to figure out their relationship (and Colossus doing a doodle of what that looks like!). We get to see the entire Drake family and them trying to deal with Bobby being gay, I mean, errr. . .a mutant. And we get John/Pyro get to be an awesome foil for Bobby in a lot of ways. It’s really smart and also true to a lot of comics continuity– foils both in terms of powers and personality.

And then. . . that ending. That final bit with Jean Grey trying to push back the water. I’ll admit. I cried a little.

This is not only my favorite of the X-Men movies, but I think it’s Bryan Singer’s best work as a director as well.

The only complaint I have is that the ending set up so much that was left unrealized.

But Proletaria-tron didn’t think so. He liked X3, and he’ll review that for us next.

“X-Men.”  In the year 2000 (cue Conan O’Brien and flashlights) we had a major turning point in the history of the genre of superhero and comic-book based movies. Prior to this, movies based on comics had a fairly bad hit to miss ratio. Of course, Richard Donner’s Superman movies and Burton’s Batman had pleased audiences and critics alike. You also had films like “Blade” whose connection to their comic source material was tenuous and whose appeal was relatively small.

But, then you had the made-for-TV Nick Fury movie starring David Hasselhoff, the Roger Corman “Fantastic Four” movie (made only so the studio could retain the rights to the characters), and numerous Batman and Superman sequels whose very existence proved the law of diminishing returns. Oh, and someone decided to make a Spawn movie co-starring John Leguizamo and Martin Sheen with a bad dye job.

But then everything changed. Suddenly a director had captured the essence of what had made a set of comic book characters beloved by a couple of generations of fans, but also adapted them to the screen in a way that appealed to mass audiences. 

And it was a big hit. And everyone else took notice and started not only making superhero movies based on the properties they owned but also buying up the rights to other comics.

Looking back on this movie, I remember when I first saw it. I went with my roommates at the time, half of whom had never heard of the X-Men and half of whom were fairly big nerds, like me. Walking out, I was completely giddy. What amazed me was how much my civilian roommates and friends liked it as well. And then, when three days later one of these said civilian roommates took his girlfriend to go see it, and she liked it? This was something magical. I’ve also previously alluded to how my wife and I bonded over the film. 

But now, 14 years and 6 sequels/spinoffs later, how does the original hold up? I took in a repeat viewing of a film I have watched nearly a hundred times.

Well, the script still has some problems. Yes, there’s the clunker about “What happens to a toad that’s struck by lightning?” (Ummmm. . . “It croaks!” is the appropriate response, isn’t it?) But there’s also some gems, like Wolverine proving it’s really him by telling Cyclops he’s a dick. 

Storm sticks out like a sore thumb, or should I say Halle Berry’s attempts at an accent do? It was much better when she just spoke in her normal voice like she did in later films. We love you Halle Berry! You don’t need to do an accent to play this character! We promise!

The character of Rogue is still underdeveloped, and is essentially a plot maguffin rather than a real character. Too bad, since she was always one of my favorites. Of course, that was Rogue who had previously been a bad guy who stole Carol Danvers powers and put her in a coma for years, and the essence of Ms. Marvel’s goodness turned her into a hero. Without being able to tell that backstory, Rogue is just. . . less interesting. And she can’t fly and isn’t nearly invincible. Too bad, because Anna Paquin is generally pretty great. But just like Magneto, the script only wanted her for her powers.

Which leads us to Magneto and his plot. Other than creating a cool special effects lightshow at the Statue of Liberty, Magneto’s plan was kind of. . . lame? The fact that he wouldn’t listen to our X-heroes telling him that Senator Kelly was dead seems somewhat uncharacteristic — unless he actually was like, “Nah, eff it– I’d just as soon kill all the world’s leaders as make them into mutants anyway.” Magneto was never really a straight up murderer, even though he was certainly capable of killing. But that seems a little bit of a stretch.

But, his characterization and acting by Ian McKellan is what sells this film. Ok, and his chemistry with Patrick Stewart. But that’s the core of this movie. As is the realization that Magneto is not the villain of this story. Oh no. Senator Kelly is the bad guy. Magneto is just the little kid who lost his parents to The Holocaust (an amazing opening sequence that immediately tells you this movie isn’t f@#$ing around, by the way) who vows to never let it happen again. 

Kelly is the bigot. Kelly is the one who threatens them. He’s the reason Mystique was afraid to play with other kids. But when he meets his death 2/3 way through the movie, it’s kind of like. . .”Ummmm. . . ok. Now what?” Kelly was used as a plot device as much as Rogue was. Again, a wasted character.

But enough bitching about what went wrong. What was great about this? I already mentioned Stewart and McKellan, but I can’t emphasize that enough. Those two bring so much gravitas to the film that it makes it hard to take it anything other than seriously. No, this isn’t campy superheroes in yellow spandex, but we’ll make a joke about just how ridiculous that would be.

And yes, the humor in the movie! So good without being stupid (except the aforementioned toad line). And what was great was how it came from character. Wolverine was snarky. “What do they call you — Wheels?” “You’re a dick.” And because he’s the fish out of water learning about this new world, he’s our proxy as the audience. What an amazing bit of storytelling that you take the fan favorite and use him as the lens for breaking into this universe. Really, really smart choices.

And Hugh Jackman. Wow. Bryan Singer hit the jackpot with this discovery. Can you imagine the nerd rage that would happen today if they were making an X-Men movie and an Aussie soap opera actor better known for his singing and dancing got cast as Wolverine? It would break the Internet. 

All the other casting was great, too. I hated James Marston, I loved Famke Jannson. Just like you were supposed to. I really liked Rebecca Romijn, Tyler Mane and Ray Park the same way you should love your bad guys. They were awesome. 

So despite some of what X-Men got wrong, it got so much right. And you wanted to root for them to succeed. And while a few of the digital effects now look a little dated, most of what’s in here is great. And the film holds up fairly well, although it’s by no means as good as its sequel or any number of other excellent films that it inspired.

Thanks, X-Men. We’ll always owe you a huge debt of gratitude.

THE HOBBIT: THE DESOLATION OF SMAUG (8 out of 10) Co-written and directed by Peter Jackson (based on the novel by J.R.R. Tolkien); starring Martin Freeman, Ian McKellen, Richard Armitage, Evangeline Lilly and the voice of Benedict Cumberbatch; rated PG-13 (extended sequences of intense fantasy action violence, and frightening images); in general release, playing in either 2D, 3D or 3D IMAX; running time: 161 minutes.

When it comes to Peter Jackson, there’s probably one thing on which we can all agree: The dude loves him some J.R.R. Tolkien.

The New Zealand director’s filmic adaptations of Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy were either too faithful or they weren’t faithful enough, depending on your own love of/perspective on Tolkien. But no one could say he didn’t put his heart and soul into those productions.

His equally ambitious, three-part cinematic take of Tolkien’s single-volume The Hobbit, have the same share of highlights and problems. For better or worse, the first film in the latter trilogy, An Unexpected Journey, strayed dangerously close to becoming the movie that was skewered by the Kevin Smith-written characters in Clerks 2: There was a lot of walking. So much of it, in fact, that the naysaying complaints about material “padding” – to facilitate three movies – seemed perfectly valid.

Luckily, the second part, The Desolation of Smaug is a considerable improvement on its predecessor. Oh, there are still a lot of scenes featuring characters walking. But they seem briefer and more relevant to the action, and the bits of necessary humor are not so dopey, juvenile and lowbrow (the flatulence and other bodily secretion humor in the first Hobbit was a low point for the Jackson-Tolkien adaptations to date).

Better yet, there seems to be more action this time around. It’s much more thrilling and is, again, pertinent, necessary action. And the character moments just work better in this installment. It’s almost as if Jackson and his talented cast shook off the first film’s dusty, crusty layer and got down to business. (The three films were actually shot consecutively, so it only seems that way.)

The Desolation of Smaug certainly doesn’t waste much time getting back into the action – well, it does after a quick, bread-breaking flashback sequence that features the wizard Gandalf (Ian McKellen) and would-be Dwarf king Thorin Oakenshield (Richard Armitage), and fills newcomers in on what they need to know about the story so far.

Thorin and his party of fellow Dwarves are hoping to make their way to the Lonely Mountain, to reclaim Thorin’s throne and reunite their scattered people. But the path is perilous. While they’ve survived an attack by orcs in the Misty Mountains, those threats (and others) are tracking them through Mirkwood Forest.

Things look even more imposing once they actually get to the Lonely Mountain (if they even do). The fierce dragon Smaug (voiced by Benedict Cumberbatch) lies in wait, protecting his ill-gotten treasure. But Thorin and Co. have one secret weapon: the title character, Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman), whom they believe will be able to burgle his way into the Secret Door, into Smaug’s lair. 

Meanwhile, Gandalf, has sensed there are dark forces building, and has left our heroes on their own, so he can confront this additional threat head-on.

As he did with the Rings cast, Jackson has to juggle a huge ensemble. But he does manage to give most of his cast their time and even shines a spotlight on a couple of breakout (or even returning) characters. Evangeline Lilly (TV’s Lost) kicks a surprising amount of butt in her supporting performance as an elf warrior, while Orlando Bloom seems to be enjoying himself more than usual, reprising his role as Legolas.

(Lilly’s Tauriel just might be the female cosplay costume for next year, while males can try their hand at Legolas… or the less-fit ones can settle for being Freeman’s slightly less heroic Bilbo.)

Both Lilly and Bloom are front-and-center for the film’s best action sequence, one in which they take on an orc army, chasing them across rocks, rivers and a forest, as well as over the tops of some Dwarf heads. Though even this pales in comparison to the highly anticipated, very tense and intense Bilbo-Smaug confrontation. (Cumberbatch appears to be echoing the late George Sanders; his Smaug has the same intonation and menace of Sanders’ Shere Khan, from Disney’s The Jungle Book.)

And yes, the film does leave off on a cliffhanger note, to make us anticipate next year’s third in the trilogy (There and Back Again) even more. But it feels less like a cheat than a similar scenes did in the recent Hunger Games sequel, and more like the still-delightfully soul-crushing one in Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back.

Jeff Michael Vice, aka Jerk-bot, can be heard reviewing films, television programs, comics, books, music and other things as part of The Geek Show Podcast (www.thegeekshowpodcast.com), as well as be seen reviewing films as part of Xfinity’s Big Movie Mouth-Off (www.facebook.com/BigMovieMouthOff).

Captains log:
Stardate: -309313.6

We find ourselves on a class M planet, designation Earth.

For those of you unfamiliar with translating stardates and Starfleet lingo (or my approximation of it) yesterday, September 8, 2013 I received joyous news via a photo on my Twitter feed. Sir Patrick Stewart had taken a bride, now Lady Sunny Ozell.

Stewart and Ozell, a jazz singer and songwriter, met in 2008 at the Brooklyn Academy of Music and have been dating ever since.

Readings indicate several life signs including Sir Ian McKellen, who was in attendance and officiated the ceremony bringing the total number of knights to two and the total number of awesome to over 9000.

My Captain looks happy, and that makes me happy. But you don’t have to take my word for it, just check out this sweet ball picture SirPatStew posted via Twitter with the caption “Yes, married”.

This begs the question… does Patrick Stewart own a ball pit!? Inquiring bots would like to know… and jump in it.

Neverbot out.