Starring: Patrick Stewart, Hugh Jackman, Halle Berry, Ian McKellen, Anna Paquin, Brian Cox

This is going to seem like a left-handed compliment but here goes; X2 is the best comic book movie to date.

Spider-Man was a marvel in that it seemed so darned determined to stick to its angst-ridden roots and let Sam Raimi be Sam Raimi. Superman was suffused with a kind nostalgia and a sense of wonder and Batman had stunt casting and set design. But, pound for pound, I'd put X2's 135 minutes against all other adaptations from source materials that also sold Sea Monkeys.

What's particularly disarming about this one is the level of humor and the nature of that humor. It rarely panders. Check that, it never panders. It employs both gallows and adult (read mature, not dirty) humor. X2 also has something that most of these ventures never have; a vicious streak. It's not cruel but get this movie's blood up and, well, things get uncomfortable. You're uneasy in the circumstances; not entirely sure what's going to happen, or who's going to do what to whom.

What starts out happening is a spectacular attempt on the President's life by a mutant. Though foiled the threat brings about new cries for mutant registration. It's a theme, and a bill, carried over from the first film several years ago (it's nice to know that even in comic book universes Congress takes forever to get things done). Enter General Stryker (Brian Cox). He gets the go-ahead to investigate things at Charles Xavier's (Patrick Stewart) school for the gifted which turns into the first salvo in a brewing war between mutants and human-kind.

This gives the various mutants a chance to show their wares including Pyro (Aaron Stanford) and Iceman (Shawn Ashmore) and finally, unleashing Wolverine, played by Hugh Jackman, the once and future king. Jackman carries so many difficult scenes by his lonesome in this film that his shoulders may be made of the mythic super alloy adamantium. Meanwhile Storm (Oscar-winner Halle Berry...sorry, couldn't resist) and Jean Grey (Famke Jannsenn) try to find Nightcrawler, brought to sympathetic life by the versatile Alan Cumming.

In what could have been a throwaway sequence, and indicative of the care put into this production, director Bryan Singer has something for everyone. In a scene where Grey and Storm meet Nightcrawler in his church hideaway there's some mindless action. There's a few chills. But there's also a very funny nod to director John Woo (if you're in a church, there will be doves flying in slow motion). There's even--gulp--a rather human sequence where Nightcrawler explains the origins of his scarification. This is a comic book movie?

Most definitely. As the danger increases and the stakes are raised to their ever-impossible levels the movie does lose some of its freewheeling fun and adventure in a required nod to story conventions. It turns a tad maudlin as well near the end with poor James Marsden being forced to emote using only a quivering lip. But no matter. X2 has already earned our laughs and our appreciation and comic book movies move up one more rung on the evolutionary ladder of cinema.