"Not Sydney Schanberg: Well, it's just too goddamn late, Alan, this country's split apart. We put this ship to sea and it breaks my heart not to help it back to a port, any port."

"I know Sid but what can we do? It could be a bloodbath here. Look, excuse the pun but we're either staying or we're living."

"[reading] Dear sir, My family and I are planning a touring vacation of southeast Asia and anticipate, uh 2 weeks in Cambodia touring the country. Would you please send tour information and brochures? Thanking you in advance, Wendal Payne. Wendal lives in Wisacky, South Carolina."

"What pisses me off is that this country has a lot of faults and a lot of strengths and we have done nothing but play to the faults. I'll tell you Sid I will be damned glad to get out of here. This thing has dragged on too long for it to end in all sweetness and light and after what the Khmer Rouge have been through I don't think they're going to be exactly affectionate toward westerners."

"Anything I eat's gotta be absolutely dead. That is why I can never eat an oyster. I read somewhere that they put that lemon juice on them just to stun them. What's the difference?"

"I can't eat eggs, someone told me they shrink with fright when you cook them."

"They brought in the whole fucking press corps. They want to sanitize the story. Bastards!"

"With the movie coming out in the aftermath of the military action in Iraq, Singer was asked if the troubled times made him nervous about people's reactions to the war theme in this film. "No, not at all, because the soldiers working in this film, they're not even working in the United States. They're working up in Alberta, in a secret base. They're working for a person who's completely rogue from the government. The President of the United States is very on the fence and very concerned, justifiably about issues. There are mutants who possess incredible power and who are terribly violent and dangerous to the human society and mutant society. I view these as henchmen, and in terms of fighter airplanes getting dogged and police getting dogged, no one in that sphere is really harmed. It's not about bullying the authority. I personally have tremendous faith and support of our authorities and military ... Having shown it to friends of mine in the military, they get a kick out of the fact that these soldiers are a bunch of rogue, dirt bags that get what's coming to them. And we see that. We definitely see that. This guy, Stryker, he's operating in his own universe. He's tricking the President, he's conning the President into his operation, so it's quite the opposite if anything. He's more of a terrorist.""

"When I first read this installment of the script, because I've been talking to fans, and if there's one thing they've said to me it was, 'You don't kick enough ass. Let's see that berserker rage!' I kind of thought about that, and I was like, 'Jeez, you're right.' When I went back to X-Men I, there really wasn't a lot there. I had a huge fight scene with Mystique, where I ended up on my back, knocked out, and there's a bit at the beginning, there wasn't a lot of that berserker rage. So, when I read the script, I thought the relationships were better, I thought it was funnier, I thought there was more action, but I still said, 'We've got to get even more action.' I kind of fought for a little bit more in the mansion scene sequence, particularly. That was a little more berserker rage there than was originally. But, apart from that, I thought the script had a great balance. I think it works for Wolverine's story. It's not like he's in the corner crying. He's at a crisis point where he's about to find out everything he's ever wanted to know, and as liberating as that would be, it's frightening as all hell. So, he's on edge. He's having these nightmares. So, it all kind of works in together with the action."

"On the first film, the studio was worried about the lead character stabbing people. We were like, “Yeah, okay, but he has nine inch blades that come out of his fists. People are going to get stabbed.” You can’t do what they do in the cartoons having him open doors or be the world’s most dangerous can opener. When we started to do X2 one of the first things I said to Bryan [Singer] was we needed to see Wolverine cut loose and just go on a rampage. We also knew we want the mansion be invaded. I think it was Bryan who said the others should be out of town and it should just be Wolverine watching the mansion, then you can see him tear into those people. We made sure the soldiers he was attacking were faceless. They got masks on, so you can stay in a PG-13 relm and murder a bunch of people. That’s what my 15-year-old self wanted to see from Wolverine."

""X2: X-Men United" lacks a beginning, a middle and an end, and exists more as a self-renewing loop. In that it is faithful to comic books themselves, which month after month and year after year seem frozen in the same fictional universe."

"Since the earliest days of "Spider-Man," Marvel heroes have had personal problems to deal with, and there's a classic Stan Lee moment here in the scene where Iceman breaks the news to his parents that he is a mutant. The movie treats the dialogue as a coming out scene, half-seriously, as if providing inspiration for real-life parents and their children with secrets."

"Odd, then, that Wolverine is one of the dominant characters even though his X-Acto knuckles seem pretty insignificant compared to the powers of Pyro or Cyclops. In a convention borrowed from martial arts movies, "X2" pairs characters with matching powers, so that when Wolverine has his titanic battle, it's with an enemy also equipped with blades. What would happen if Pyro and Iceman went head to head? I visualize the two of them in a pool of hot water."

"Like all the characters in the Marvel Comics stable, the X-Men have psychological or political problems; in the first movie they were faced with genocide, and in this one their right to privacy is violated with the Mutant Registration Act. Of course there will be audience members who believe mutants should have no rights, and so "X2" provides a valuable civics lesson. (How you register a mutant who can teleport or shape-shift is not explained.)"

""X2: X-Men United" is the kind of movie you enjoy for its moments, even though they never add up. Made for (and possibly by) those with short attention spans, it lives in the present, providing one amazing spectacle after another, and not even trying to develop a story arc. Having trained on the original "X-Men" (2000), i tried to experience the film entirely in the present, and the fact is, i had a good time. Dumb, but good."

"X-Men United."

"First, they were fighting for acceptance. Now, they're battling for survival."

"In this world wide conspiracy the only thing you can count on... Is the X factor."

"The ones we fear most, will be all that can save us... again."

"Evolution Continues."

"Get ready for the return of the Evolution."

"The time has come for those who are different to stand united."

"I was piloting black-ops missions in the jungles of North Vietnam when you were suckin' on your mama's tit at Woodstock, Kelly. Don't lecture me about war. This already is a war."

"Mutation: it is the key to our evolution. It is how we have evolved from a single-celled organism into the dominant species on the planet. This process is slow, normally taking thousands and thousands of years. But every few hundred millennia, evolution leaps forward."

"[After stopping the X-Jet from crashing with his powers] When will these people learn how to fly?"

"[After ripping off and throwing his dog tags at Stryker's feet] I'll take my chances with him."

"Mutants. Since the discovery of their existence they have been regarded with fear, suspicion, often hatred. Across the planet, debate rages. Are mutants the next link in the evolutionary chain or simply a new species of humanity fighting for their share of the world? Either way it is a historical fact: Sharing the world has never been humanity's defining attribute."

"For reasons passing understanding, people do not relate guns to gun-related crime."

"Richard Dreyfuss - Senator Bob Rumson"

"David Paymer - Leon Kodak"

"Anna Deavere Smith - Robin McCall"

"Michael J. Fox - Lewis Rothschild"

"Martin Sheen - A. J. MacInerney"

"Annette Bening - Sydney Ellen Wade"

"Michael Douglas - President Andrew Shepherd"

"Why can't the most powerful man in the world have the one thing he wants most?"

"How do you have patience for people who claim they love America, but clearly can't stand Americans?"

"For the last couple of months, Senator Rumson has suggested that being President of this country was, to a certain extent, about character. And although I've not been willing to engage in his attacks on me, I have been here three years and three days, and I can tell you without hesitation - being President of this country is entirely about character. For the record, yes, I am a card-carrying member of the ACLU, but the more important question is, why aren't you, Bob? Now this is an organization whose sole purpose is to defend the Bill of Rights, so it naturally begs the question, why would a Senator, his party's most powerful spokesman and a candidate for President, choose to reject upholding the Constitution? Now if you can answer that question, folks, then you're smarter than I am, because I didn't understand it until a few hours ago. America isn't easy. America is advanced citizenship. You've gotta want it bad, 'cause it's gonna put up a fight. It's gonna say, "You want free speech? Let's see you acknowledge a man whose words make your blood boil, who's standing center stage and advocating at the top of his lungs that which you would spend a lifetime opposing at the top of yours." You want to claim this land as the land of the free? Then the symbol of your country cannot just be a flag. The symbol also has to be one of its citizens exercising his right to burn that flag in protest. Now show me that, defend that, celebrate that in your classrooms. Then, you can stand up and sing about the land of the free. I've known Bob Rumson for years, and I've been operating under the assumption that the reason Bob devotes so much time and energy to shouting at the rain was that he simply didn't get it. Well, I was wrong. Bob's problem isn't that he doesn't get it. Bob's problem is that he can't sell it! We have serious problems to solve, and we need serious people to solve them. And whatever your particular problem is, I promise you, Bob Rumson is not the least bit interested in solving it. He is interested in two things, and two things only: making you afraid of it, and telling you who's to blame for it. That, ladies and gentlemen, is how you win elections. You gather a group of middle age, middle class, middle income voters who remember with longing an easier time, and you talk to them about family, and American values and character, and you wave an old photo of the President's girlfriend and you scream about patriotism. You tell them she's to blame for their lot in life. And you go on television and you call her a whore. Sydney Ellen Wade has done nothing to you, Bob. She has done nothing but put herself through school, represent the interests of public school teachers, and lobby for the safety of our natural resources. You want a character debate, Bob? You better stick with me, 'cause Sydney Ellen Wade is way out of your league. I've loved two women in my life. I lost one to cancer. And I lost the other 'cause I was so busy keeping my job, I forgot to do my job. Well, that ends right now. Tomorrow morning, the White House is sending a bill to Congress for its consideration. It's White House Resolution 455, an energy bill requiring a twenty percent reduction of the emission of fossil fuels over the next ten years. It is by far the most aggressive stride ever taken in the fight to reverse the effects of global warming. The other piece of legislation is the Crime Bill. As of today, it no longer exists. I'm throwing it out. I'm throwing it out and writing a law that makes sense. You cannot address crime prevention without getting rid of assault weapons and handguns. I consider them a threat to national security, and I will go door-to-door if I have to, but I'm gonna convince Americans that I'm right, and I'm gonna get the guns. We've got serious problems, and we need serious people. And if you want to talk about character, Bob, you'd better come at me with more than a burning flag and a membership card. If you want to talk about character and American values, fine. Just tell me where and when, and I'll show up. This is a time for serious people, Bob, and your fifteen minutes are up. My name is Andrew Shepherd, and I AM THE PRESIDENT!"

"Hansford Rowe - Jennings"

"Hank Garrett - The Mailman"

"Carlin Glynn - Mae Barber"

"Patrick Gorman - Martin"

"Helen Stenborg - Mrs. Edwina Russell"

"Dino Narizzano - Harold"

"Jess Osuna - The Major"

"Michael Miller - Fowler"

"Don McHenry - Dr. Ferdinand Lappe"