Top 10 Action Scenes of All Time #10: X-2 (The Mansion Siege)

#10: Mansion Siege

When you're talking about 'best action scenes', there's always going to be a tremendous amount of subjectivity and baggage in terms of what we view as best.



....but I've always liked Wolverine and (although Jackman is the heart and soul of the movie) the first movie didn't do him justice as a superhero. Specifically, as a violent, poorly self-controlled brawler. There was little to none of that frenetic action in the first movie, most of the fights in the first feel a bit stiff, frankly.



So in this movie, which had hit the high and low notes of the comic so well up to this scene, finally has soldiers invade the mansion and go after the students, it was refreshing and exciting that everyone involved played it true to the character and had Wolverine absolutely lose his shit. I mean completely. He's yelling and screaming and slicing up people left and right and if you don't like that then you clearly aren't prepared to root for a guy with steak knives strapped to his hands. We've never seen a good cinematic depiction before this one and it was pretty note-perfect. Maybe the new Wolverine movie will one-up this scene, but it won't have the advantage of 'first time' status and, frankly, if X-Men 3 is any indication the Wolverine movie will stink.



The satisfaction of finally seeing Wolverine be the fighter he's imagined to be would be enough, but it's actually shot and choreographed so well that I really believe that I am watching Hugh Jackman (alias: Huge Ackman) be this savage blur of death, tearing through the (legitimately intimidating) soldiers. A well-above average action scene with an iconic representation of one of my favorite childhood characters? Sounds like Top 10 material to me.



As a bonus, it's great that the other character's powers are used to good effect in the scene: Iceman, Kitty Pryde, Colossus, frankly all the ways in which the students tried to mess with the various soldiers was appreciated, it one of those moments that reminds me how much more thought and interest was put in to this movie than the other two.