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Author Topic: X2: X-MEN United Daryl C. W. O'Shea Film God Posts: 3977 From: Midland Ontario Canada (where Panavision & IMAX lenses come from) Registered: Jun 2002 posted 05-02-2003 04:57 AM                        Nice sound mix... turn it up and enjoy. VISION Premiere prints look great too!  |  IP: Logged Josh Kirkhart Expert Film Handler Posts: 165 From: Austin/Houston, TX, USA Registered: Nov 2001 posted 05-02-2003 05:35 AM                     I loved it. A Little bit more of everything in this one and the plot was not a singular as in the first. No 'United' subtitle and a setup for the 'Rise of the Phoenix', very cool. Still no theme in the score as in the last one, would have thought John Ottman would have went for one and cemented himself a job in the next one. Great sound mix, not over the top. Bryan Singer while hes never been a 'great' director, it looked like he was more comfortable with this and he shined. Hugh Jackman kickes serious ass as Wolverine, and Alan Cumming plays it cool as Nightcrawler. See it and See it again.  |  IP: Logged Patrick McDonough Expert Film Handler Posts: 118 From: Greenfield Ma. Registered: Jul 2002 posted 05-02-2003 08:25 AM                     I loved it, good action, good story, it dosnt seem like the movie is over two hours.  |  IP: Logged John Pytlak Film God Posts: 9987 From: Rochester, NY 14650-1922 Registered: Jan 2000 posted 05-02-2003 09:22 AM                        quote: VISION Premiere prints look great too! More and more feature films like the "look" of Kodak VISION Premier Color Print Film. In this case, prints were evidently made on both 2383 and 2393, with the Kodak VISION Premier Prints going to select theatres. http://www.kodak.com/US/en/motion/products/lab/2393.shtml  |  IP: Logged Michael Gonzalez Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 790 From: Grand Island , NE USA Registered: Sep 2000 posted 05-02-2003 01:52 PM                     My right surround amplifier blew near the beginning when Siryn screams but other than that this movie rules.  |  IP: Logged Brad Miller Administrator Posts: 17775 From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall) Registered: May 99 posted 05-02-2003 02:06 PM                     So why didn't the preppy ice guy just freeze the water to prevent the flooding? Durp! 3 stars out of 5  |  IP: Logged Mike Baer Film Handler Posts: 51 From: Winterthur, Switzerland Registered: Dec 2002 posted 05-02-2003 02:23 PM                        Yes you are right.I thought the same thing.  |  IP: Logged Michael Gonzalez Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 790 From: Grand Island , NE USA Registered: Sep 2000 posted 05-02-2003 02:39 PM                     Maybe he wasn't quite that powerful. The most that we saw him do was construct a wall in a hallway. Remember their powers don't quite mature until they are well into adulthood.  |  IP: Logged David Stambaugh Film God Posts: 4021 From: Eugene, Oregon Registered: Jan 2002 posted 05-02-2003 07:55 PM                        05/02/2003, Cinemark 17, Springfield OR, 2:50PM, #10, . Attendance about 150. Presentation was generally very good, except for a couple of issues that were probably not entirely the theatre's fault. Reel 1 had golfball-size grain and a very washed-out look. Reels 2 thru 7 looked WAY better: much less grain, better contrast, xlnt blacks. Maybe they were on Vision Premier stock and reel 1 was something else. Reel 2 had dirt specks, and dots (CAP code?) repeating very often in the upper-left area of the image. Some of the rolling stock was dirty. The digital sound was excellent -- I think they've re-eq'd the place recently and it's made a big improvement. I liked the original "X-Men". I have the DVD and I've watched it several times. So having said that, "X2: X-Men United" is CRAP. I hated it. I have nothing good to say about it, except the sound mix is great. The special effects were not special at all. Some of the acting is wooden. There were people in the audience laughing at inappropriate times. I couldn't follow what was going on because I made no connection with the story, and what's more, I didn't care. I spent a lot of time looking at my watch. This is a 2-hour film with a 3-hour perceived running time. My theory is the reason for the worldwide day-and-date release of X-2 is they know they have a stinker on their hands and word-of-mouth will be bad, so they have to clean up as quickly as they can.  |  IP: Logged Patrick McDonough Expert Film Handler Posts: 118 From: Greenfield Ma. Registered: Jul 2002 posted 05-02-2003 11:10 PM                     that question was broght up tonight.  |  IP: Logged Bobby Henderson "Ask me about Trajan." Posts: 10973 From: Lawton, OK, USA Registered: Apr 2001 posted 05-05-2003 10:51 AM                     Aside from a sluggish climax, I still had a pretty good time watching this one. More could have been done to explain why Iceman didn't just freeze the flood, but then that would have interfered with the obvious setup for "X3". People familiar with the X-Men comics from the late 1970's would be familiar with the Phoenix saga and know exactly what the glow under the water meant. If handled well, "X3" should be really cool. I don't know what kind of print David was watching ("golfball size grain" etc.), the one I saw at the Cinemark Tinseltown theater in Oklahoma City looked really nice (don't know whether this was one of those Vision Premiere prints or not; the show was running in DTS). The visuals were very cool too. The opening sequence where Nightcrawler attacks the White House was great. It was also fun to see Mystique seduce Wolverine and screw with his head. Magneto's prison break was also very entertaining. We get a fleeting introduction to Colossus, one of the classic 70's X-Men characters, but he isn't named and has only one stunt in the show. The only things I found glaringly fake looking were the sky tornadoes in that dogfight sequence and the Jean Grey controlling the flood near the end. Nightcrawler's FX stuff was by far the best in terms of the visuals. The only gripes I had about the presentation was a general lack of bass at this Cinemark theater. The surround field was very alive throughout this movie, but I don't what the deal is with a lot of Cinemark locations in that many have WIMPY bass. It's like the subs were just unplugged or something. More infurianting gripes: Some couple chose to bring their noise making infant to the show, so everyone would hear its cute ga-ga goo-goo and crying shit up at back left of the theater (asshole parents!! No, we don't think that cooing shit is cute at all; get a f**king babysitter next time!!). More infuriating than that was three different cellphones going off during the show --including that of one dumbass sitting right next to me! It was all I could do to resist grabbing his phone and chunking down in front the front row. Cellphone idiocy has gotten so bad that the AMC 24-plex at Quail Springs Mall now has ushers informing audiences before the show begins that they WILL be ejected if their cellphones sound off. Unless you are a doctor on call, leave the f**king phone in the car; and if you are a brain surgeon, put the phone on VIBRATE/SILENT mode. Dumbasses!  |  IP: Logged David Stambaugh Film God Posts: 4021 From: Eugene, Oregon Registered: Jan 2002 posted 05-05-2003 11:19 AM                        Only reel 1 looked "bad" to me. The rest of the film looked MUCH better. I don't know if it was Vision Premiere or not, but from the very deep blacks, I'll bet it was (except for reel 1). I've been complaining for a long time about the lack of bass at Cinemark 17 here. Guess what??!! They have CLEARLY done something about it recently. My last half-dozen or so visits to this theatre have shown a HUGE improvement in sound quality: Plenty of good deep bass, and everything else sounds like it's EQ'd much better. I've been WAY happy about this improvement in sound quality there. X-2 sounded GREAT. I now have no good reason for going to the competitor Regal location (Regal had better sound until now). The analog sound seems way better too. Someone has really worked at improving things there. to Cinemark. As for the movie, I think I was having a bad day that day. I intend to see it again and hopefully will enjoy it more.  |  IP: Logged Duncan Smith Film Handler Posts: 50 From: England Registered: Jan 2003 posted 05-05-2003 11:38 AM                     Saw this myself yesterday at my local multi where I used to work. Presentation was good but I did notice that the Sub bass was very weak, not a characteristic of that theatre though. Also, did anyone else notice the presence of black bars along the bottom of the image during certain shots? I'm guessing this was done in camera as it was cutting in and out with different shots throughtout the movie. They weren't huge but I was only in the 4th row so I noticed them a lot. I did think it was very grainy too, perhaps a good show print in Leicester square would look better, they usually do. I am sure that the film was racked correctly by the way so why the bars? Did enjoy the film though, where was Kitty (shadowkat)? I only saw her briefly. I was expecting her to have a bigger part, guess there's always X3! Duncan.  |  IP: Logged Jack Ondracek Film God Posts: 2348 From: Port Orchard, WA, USA Registered: Oct 2002 posted 05-06-2003 09:06 PM                        I'd already seen it at a trade screening... but we've done very good business so far (first week). We got an excellent print... no grain, black bar, wavy dark line or speckle issues with this one. DTS effects were very evident... especially during the "find the mutant - find the human" scenes with Prof X in "Cerebro". Everyone seems to be enjoying it. It'll be interesting to see how it gets through the usual 2nd-week drop. Not being a follower if the comic, I enjoyed this one thoroughly. I thought they did a very good job of bringing in a viewer that might not have seen the first one. As for the ice-kid not stopping the flood... that didn't occur to me until I saw the other posts here... but I can buy into the "immature powers" theory. In any case, he did a good job of cooling the Dr. Pepper bottle during the product placement scene . In any case, some pictures are best enjoyed if you intentionally leave your "critic's nature" at the door. Then there's Matrix coming up on the 14th, which might have a tiny effect on turnout, eh?  |  IP: Logged Evans A Criswell Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1579 From: Huntsville, AL, USA Registered: Mar 2000 posted 05-07-2003 10:58 PM                        Attendance: 2003/05/07 19:00, Regal Madison Square 12, Huntsville, AL, Auditorium 8, DTS, Scope I enjoyed watching this movie. As for the comparison with the first X-Men, I couldn't say I enjoyed it more or less than the first one at this point. Future viewings of both will help that determination in the future. The sound mix was very good, but the theatre I was in had it a little too loud (painfully loud at times). There were two points in the movie where I stuck my fingers in my ears. It was a good movie (well worth seeing) that filled this large auditorium at this not-so-busy theatre to about half capacity on a weeknight, which isn't bad! This movie will probably continue to do well until the next big movie comes out (Matrix Reloaded). The presentation was fine, except for the audio being a little too loud. as I mentioned earlier.  |  IP: Logged

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