?X2? isn?t quite ?The Empire Strikes Back,? but it?s still a thrilling second… ?X2? isn?t quite ?The Empire Strikes Back,? but it?s still a thrilling second chapter.

Compared to the first X-Men film, scope is broader, fates are far more severe, and it?s just plain more ? running time is over two hours where the original barely crossed the 90-minute mark.

Returning director and slickness maestro Bryan Singer seems right at home in summer-event-film mode. He?s got the necessary fast pace and big punch but, thankfully, holds back most of the dumbness ? we still have to forgive the occasional boy band joke or ill-timed middle finger ? that the season tends to bring.

The ante is immediately upped in the first scene, where Nightcrawler (Alan Cumming), a nimble, teleporting mutant, infiltrates the White House, disappearing here and reappearing there, trouncing legions of guards all the way to the oval office, making for a well-staged action sequence that?s more dazzling than anything in the original ?X-Men.?

Singer continues the first film?s theme of intolerance, depicting a president who?s terrified of mutants and prepared to do whatever it takes to disarm them. William Stryker (Brian Cox), a mutant-hating military scientist, is ordered to invade Professor X?s (Patrick Stewart) School for Gifted Youngsters, a safe haven for mutants and the home of the X-Men. By way of dicing up a bunch of intruding soldiers, Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) and the cream of the mutant crop escape capture and face the task of foiling Stryker?s plot to destroy all mutants.

Along the way, we meet a couple of new characters, including Deathstrike (Kelly Hu), who?s just the girl to beat up Wolverine, and the aforementioned Nightcrawler, who packs the coolest special effects of the bunch.

?X2? is a stylish mix of action and sci-fi that actually manages to generate an evening?s worth of excitement.