X-Men2 - it was great! I loved it. I too was waiting for Iceman to do his freezy thing with the water. It was a bit of a clumsy plot device to have Jean her meet her end like that though. Also liked the little tasters of Collosus and The Beast (when mystique is in the bar he's on the telly), and was there a little tension between Mummy Nightcrawler Mystique and Nightcrawler? But then if she's a shapeshifter, maybe she's his dad...? They got Nightcrawler's 'bamf'-ing just right. Even if he couldn't master the accent. Also thought Magneto's escape was really well done. That was a good bit of plot and cinema
As for Matrix2, I reckon I would have loved it if I could have seen it straight after the original, but instead it was just more of the same acrobatics (which no.1 told us Neo didn't need?) and lots of plot making ready for number 3. The only interesting part was Smith for me. It will be mildly interesting to see if Neo went through the door the architect wanted him to or not - waiting to see if the Wachowski brothers constructed their plot very cleverly or not.
And Philip, as for Neo in a priest robe and the pseudo-religious-cult people...well thats what they're meant to be isn't it? The first film was loaded with Christian allegory: Neo is the saviour prophesied by a John the Baptist type Morpheus. Thomas (Anderson) doubts his abilities - Thomas was the doubter among Jesus' followers. Neo is betrayed by a close ally, Cypher, like Judas betrayed Jesus. This time its a sneeze not a kiss though. *L* Neo willingly sacrifices himself to die after learning that he or morpheus will die, "One of you is going to die. Which one will be up to you", in the same coversation that the oracle prophesies his death and resurrection - she tells him he's waiting for something "Your next life, maybe...". When he does die he is brought back to life by (the) *Trinity* and Neo finishes the first movie by flying up in to the sky - ascension into heaven after the resurrection...? So a bit of religious imagery is kinda what they were aiming for I think. Either that or theres a damn lot of of coincidences there! (and I didn't mention half of the other little details I've seen people discuss). You were dead right about number 2 though... It was all I could do not to fall asleep in Matrix 2. It was obvious it wasn't going to have the punch of number 1 because the whole new and surprising aspect had been removed, but still I expected more :/
On a totally different note: If you want to see something good, watch the Half Life 2 movie from E3 - 20mins long, 600MB download. Very Impressive.
....and I'm spent....