X2: X-Men UnitedSave

We open with an extraordinary sequence: Nightcrawler (Alan Cumming) — a German Catholic mutant teleporter — infiltrates the White House by teleporting through Secret Service agents. He almost assassinates the President of the United States but is restrained at the last possible moment. The attempt is broadcast worldwide. The U.S. government responds by approving a mutant-suppression initiative led by William Stryker (Brian Cox), an army general with a history of anti-mutant research.

Cut to: Charles Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters in Westchester. The X-Men — Storm, Cyclops, Jean Grey, Wolverine, and now-teenager Rogue — train in the Danger Room. Logan / Wolverine has been on a years-long search for his pre-1979 past. He has discovered, in his investigations, references to Stryker's Alkali Lake Weapon X facility — where Logan was given his adamantium skeleton against his will.

Stryker attacks the Xavier mansion in the dead of night with a paramilitary unit. The X-Men are largely overwhelmed; Wolverine engages Stryker's team in the kitchen, killing several with his claws. Stryker is ultimately rebuffed but takes Cyclops and Charles Xavier captive. The remaining X-Men — Storm, Jean, Wolverine, Iceman, Rogue, Pyro — flee with Nightcrawler (whom they've also recruited).

Stryker's plan: use a brainwashed Charles Xavier — connected to a Cerebro-like machine — to telepathically attack every mutant on Earth. The attack would kill them all. Magneto, having been broken out of his prison cell by Mystique, makes an uneasy alliance with the X-Men against the common threat. Together they infiltrate Alkali Lake — the facility where Logan was experimented on years earlier.

Logan's flashback memories return throughout the mission. He recalls being submerged in the adamantium-injection tank, his pre-Wolverine life as a man named Jimmy or 'Three' or some other coded identity. Stryker, captured during the assault, reveals he was the surgeon who performed the adamantium implantation. Logan kills Stryker's son, a brainwashed mutant called Lady Deathstrike, in a particularly brutal hand-to-hand sequence.

The X-Men evacuate Charles from Stryker's machine. Magneto reverses Stryker's Cerebro programming — instead of killing all mutants, he intends to kill all non-mutants. The X-Men intercept. The dam containing Alkali Lake bursts. Jean Grey, in the climactic sequence, telepathically holds back the floodwater long enough for the team to escape — but cannot escape herself. She tells Logan and the others to go without her. They watch from a hill as Jean Grey is consumed by the lake and the explosion.

The film closes with Jean's apparent death and Charles delivering a eulogy to the school's students. Stryker is also dead — chained to a runway as the flood overtakes him. Mystique has impersonated Senator Kelly to read the X-Men's case before the Senate. The final shot is the rising glow of the Phoenix — Jean Grey's mutation has evolved into something more powerful — setting up The Last Stand (2006).

X2: X-Men United grossed $407 million globally on a $110 million budget — a significant improvement over the original. The film was widely cited as the franchise's high-water mark for the next decade. Bryan Singer's third X-Men film, The Last Stand (2006), was directed by Brett Ratner after Singer's departure for Superman Returns (2006).