X-Men: The Last Stand

In 1986, Charles Xavier and Erik Lehnsherr meet young Jean Grey at her parents' house to invite her to join their school, the X-Mansion. Ten years later, the industrialist Warren Worthington II discovers his son is a mutant as he tries to cut off his wings.

In the present, Worthington Labs announces it has developed an inoculation to suppress the X-gene that gives mutants their abilities and offer the "cure" to any mutant who wants it. The cure is created from the genome of a young mutant named Jimmy, who lives at the Worthington facility on Alcatraz Island. While some mutants are interested in the cure, including Rogue, many others are horrified by the announcement. Magneto re-establishes his Brotherhood of Mutants with those who oppose the cure, warning his followers that the cure will be forcefully used to exterminate the mutant race. With help from Pyro, Magneto recruits Callisto and several other mutants. They attack the mobile prison holding Mystique to free her, also freeing Multiple Man and Juggernaut. Mystique, shielding Magneto from a cure dart, is hit by it and loses her mutant abilities. Magneto abandons her as a result. Meanwhile, Scott Summers, still distraught over the loss of his fiancée Jean Grey, drives to her resting location at Alkali Lake. Jean appears to Summers but, as the two kiss, Jean kills him. Sensing trouble, Xavier sends Logan and Storm to investigate. When they arrive, they find only telekinetically floating rocks, Summers' glasses, and an unconscious Jean.

When Logan and Storm return to the X-Mansion, Xavier explains to Logan that when Jean sacrificed herself to save them, she also freed the "Phoenix", a dark and extremely powerful alternate personality which Xavier had telepathically repressed, aware of the Phoenix's godlike destructive potential. Logan is disgusted to learn of this psychic tampering with Jean's mind but, once she awakens, he discovers that she killed Summers and is not the Jean Grey he once knew. The Phoenix emerges, knocks out Logan, and escapes to her childhood home. Magneto learns of Jean's resurrection through Callisto, and the X-Men arrive at the Grey home at the same time as the Brotherhood. Magneto and Xavier go in, and both vie for Jean's loyalty until the Phoenix resurfaces. She destroys the house and kills Xavier by disintegrating him, much to Magneto's horror before leaving with him. After interrogating a depowered Mystique, the FBI discover Magneto's base in the woods. However, the life forms in the camp are all decoy copies of Multiple Man. Magneto and the Brotherhood have gone to storm Alcatraz by using his magnetic manipulation powers to reroute the Golden Gate Bridge. The remaining X-Men confront the Brotherhood, despite being significantly outnumbered, and arrive just as the military troops who thus far have been neutralizing the attacking mutants are overwhelmed by the Brotherhood.

During the fight, Kitty Pryde saves Jimmy from Juggernaut, who had been sent to kill him by Magneto. Logan has Colossus throw him at Magneto and distract him long enough for Hank McCoy to inject Magneto with the "cure" and thus nullify his powers. The Phoenix is awakened and begins to destroy Alcatraz and anyone within range of her powers. Magneto, realising the error of his ways, escapes with the army. Logan realizes that only he can stop the Phoenix due to his healing factor and adamantium skeleton. When Logan approaches her, Jean momentarily gains control and begs him to save her, and everyone else, by killing her. Logan fatally stabs Jean, killing the Phoenix, but mourns her death. Sometime later, mutant rights are finally obtained and Xavier's school is still operating with Storm as headmistress. The President of the United States appoints McCoy as ambassador to the United Nations. Rogue reveals to Bobby Drake that she has taken the cure, much to his disappointment, but they hold hands. Meanwhile, Magneto sits at a chessboard in San Francisco, seemingly human and weak. As Magneto gestures toward a metal chess piece, it wobbles slightly.

Elsewhere, Moira MacTaggert checks on a comatose patient[lower-alpha 1] who greets her with Xavier's voice, leaving her startled.

• Hugh Jackman as Logan / Wolverine: A Canadian mutant born with hyper-acute, animal-like senses, claws on his hands, and an accelerated healing factor that made it possible to implant a coating of the indestructible metal alloy adamantium on his skeleton. Jackman was pleased to see that the script allowed Wolverine to expand his character choices, as instead of questioning whether he would remain a loner or join the X-Men, Logan now is asked if he will play a leadership role in the X-Men.[9]
• Halle Berry as Ororo Munroe / Storm: A mutant, who is one of Xavier's earlier students and the leader of the X-Men in Cyclops' absence. Storm is a woman with the ability to manipulate the weather. Berry had stated during interviews for X2 that she would not return unless the character had a significant presence comparable to the comic book version, leading to a larger role in The Last Stand's script.[10] Berry declared that her ethnicity made the actress identify with the cure plot: "When I was a child, I felt that if only I could change myself, my life would be better. As I've gotten older, I've come to terms with what utter nonsense that is."[9] The character was given a more modern haircut, and costume designer Judianna Makovsky opted to give Storm more black clothes, a color she only wore in the leather costume for previous films, to make her "tougher and sexier".[11]
• Ian McKellen as Erik Lehnsherr / Magneto: Leader and founder of the Brotherhood, Magneto is a mutant Holocaust survivor who wages war against humanity in the name of mutant superiority. He has the ability to control and manipulate metal, making him one of the most powerful mutants. Well known for his homosexuality, McKellen found a parallel of the cure with many prejudices: "It's abhorrent to me, as it would be if a person said I need curing of my sexuality, or if someone said that black people could take a pill that would 'cure' them of being black."[9] McKellen's shooting schedule had to accommodate his work in both The Da Vinci Code (2006) and the London theatre, going as far as filming the actor in England to later superimpose into the Vancouver plates.[12]
• Famke Janssen as Jean Grey / Phoenix:[13][14][15] A mutant former member of the X-Men, a Class 5 mutant who possesses potentially limitless telepathic and telekinetic powers. The X-Men learn that she has survived the flooding dam from the previous film, but when the rest of the team finds her, Grey has given in completely to her aggressive alternate personality of her powers, the Phoenix. Her mutant powers rival those of Xavier. The writers described the multiple personalities as "an Oedipal drama played out", where the Phoenix was "someone embodying [a] Greek goddess", while Jean Grey kept the character as "a human, grounded in Freudian terms, a victim, a schizophrenic.[16] To mark the change of Jean Grey into Phoenix, her wardrobe focused on red colors, and everyday fabric in contrast to the leather costumes of the X-Men.[11] Digital make-up also made Jean's face darker with her skin showing some veins and her eyes turning black, signifying the Phoenix personality of her powers.[17] Haley Ramm plays a young Jean Grey.
• Anna Paquin as Marie / Rogue: A young mutant woman whose power causes her to temporarily take on the powers of anyone she touches, leaving her victims (mutant or human) unconscious; Rogue's lack of control over her power causes a great deal of strain on her relationship with Iceman. Paquin declared that while Rogue did not have "a large physical component in this movie", the "adult decisions" the character was forced to do made for more intensity on the emotional side.[18]
• Kelsey Grammer as Dr. Henry "Hank" McCoy / Beast: A mutant former student of Xavier's Institute for Gifted Mutants who is now a member of the U.S. Cabinet as the Secretary of Mutant Affairs, Beast is a brilliant scientist and statesman. He is covered in blue fur and has heightened strength, reflexes and agility, as well as pointed fangs and a lion-like roar. Grammer's make-up took three hours to apply, it involved applying latex prosthetics before painting his eye area and lips blue, applying various hair pieces and wigs, and a muscle suit covered with a hand-punched fur suit.[19]
• James Marsden as Scott Summers / Cyclops: A mutant, who is X-Men's field leader, Cyclops emits powerful energy blasts from his eyes, and must wear specially made glasses to prevent the destruction of anything he looks at. Although he is in a committed relationship with Jean Grey, her Phoenix persona kills him early in the film. Marsden saw no problem in having a smaller role, as the films opted to feature Wolverine as the standpoint character, and feeling that "it's difficult when you have however many new characters that you're trying to introduce to an audience in 90 to 120 minutes, to give everyone their due."[20]
• Rebecca Romijn as Raven Darkholme / Mystique: Magneto's mutant blue-skinned right-hand woman possesses the ability to shape-shift to mimic anyone's appearance, as well as fight with incredible agility, reflexes and strength. She is also a woman of few words. She jumps in front of cure darts intended for Magneto and, after she loses her mutant abilities as a result, Magneto abandons her. Romijn described this story as "a traumatic experience" for Mystique, given that the previous movies implied that she and Magneto had "a deep-seated bond", and becoming "a frail mortal would be her worst nightmare".[21]
• Shawn Ashmore as Bobby Drake / Iceman: A young mutant, Iceman can create constructs of ice or blasts of cold. Ashmore's commitments to X-Men made him decline Bryan Singer's invitation to play Jimmy Olsen in Superman Returns. The actor was content with his bigger role after Bobby joined the X-Men main team in X2, as during the previous production he wondered "When do I get to freeze something or get into a fight?"[22]
• Aaron Stanford as John Allerdyce / Pyro: A mutant who was a student of Xavier's School for Gifted Mutants with a grudge against his former friend Bobby Drake, Pyro has the ability to manipulate fire, generated through wrist-mounted lighters. Stanford stated that with the Brotherhood, Pyro "is allowed to fully explore his power" for lacking moral restraints. The actor was comfortable with returning to the role, particularly for following The Hills Have Eyes, which had an exhausting shoot in the Moroccan desert, while Pyro was nowhere near as physically demanding – "My character's pretty much stand-and-deliver, stand there and throw fire at people. There's no acrobatics."[23]
• Vinnie Jones as Cain Marko / Juggernaut: A mutant criminal recruited by the Brotherhood in a prison truck, Juggernaut is incredibly strong, fast and, once he gains momentum, he is nearly unstoppable. The film's version of Juggernaut is depicted as a mutant and his relation to Charles Xavier was never mentioned. Matthew Vaughn cast Jones, who he met producing the Guy Ritchie gangster movies where Jones began his acting career.[12] The actor had to go through a four-hour make-up process to portray Juggernaut, which included a muscle suit and a prosthetic chin.[24] The costume tried to retain the bullet-shaped helmet of the comics without going excessively over the top.[11]
• Patrick Stewart as Charles Xavier / Professor X: A mutant with uncharted telepathic powers, and founder of Xavier's Institute for Gifted Mutants. Xavier is an authority on genetic mutation and an advocate of peaceful relations between human and mutant kind. Stewart signed to the film without knowing Xavier would die, and not meeting original director Matthew Vaughn – both would meet in Manchester, where Stewart was filming Eleventh Hour, but eventually Brett Ratner called to introduce himself as the new director.[25]

Additionally, Elliot Page[lower-alpha 2] appears as Kitty Pryde / Shadowcat, a mutant with the ability to phase through matter and walk through solid objects. Her clear affection for Iceman further adds to the tension already present between Iceman and Rogue. Maggie Grace was considered for the role,[26] before Ratner invited Page, who impressed the director with their performance in Hard Candy. The actor initially declined, not wanting to yet jump to Hollywood filmmaking, but accepted after reading the script.[27] Page said part of their motivation was having a new experience: "I thought, well, when else am I going to have a chance to wear a leather suit and run through exploding things? Why not be a superhero for a change?"[28] Daniel Cudmore appears as Peter Rasputin / Colossus, a mutant with the ability to transform his body into an organic steel, while also granting him superhuman strength and a resistance to physical damage while in that form. Cudmore wore a foam latex muscle suit covered with a chrome-plated plastic plus a hard plastic head to have the metal skin on the set, with some digital augmentation being used to enhance the facial expressions. A digital double was used only for stunts that could not be achieved practically, such as the Fastball Special where Colossus throws Wolverine at Magneto.[19] Ben Foster appears as Warren Worthington III / Angel, the mutant son of an industrialist, who has feathered wings which allow him to fly. The static wings were models with a 15 feet (4.6 m) wingspan and 5 feet (1.5 m) height glued to Foster's back, replaced with computer-generated ones when movement was required.[19] Cayden Boyd appears as young Angel.

Michael Murphy appears as Warren Worthington II, the head of Worthington Labs, the corporation developing the "cure". Worthington expects to rid his son of his mutant abilities. The addition of the character allowed to integrate Angel into the cure plot,[29] which also added a parallel between Warren's discovery of his son's mutation with a father finding out about his son's homosexuality.[16] Dania Ramirez appears as Callisto, the leader of the Omegas. Callisto is a mutant with enhanced superhumanly acute senses, who senses mutants and their powers, and possesses superhuman speed and an expert hand-to-hand combatant. The character was combined with powers another of the Morlocks Caliban and was written as someone who could be "beautiful, but with a tough persona".[30] Ramirez had originally auditioned to play the mutant prostitute Stacy X, and impressed Ratner so much that he decided to bring her in to play Callisto.[31] Shohreh Aghdashloo appears as Dr. Kavita Rao, a scientist who works at Worthington Labs on the mutant cure. She is killed by Kid Omega. Aghdashloo signed without a completed script, and erroneously said her character would be mutant doctor Cecilia Reyes.[32] Josef Sommer appears as the President, the President of the United States who is tolerant of mutants, but fearful of the Brotherhood's threats. While creating the role, the producers felt that a "different" president, like an African American or a woman, had become a cliché in itself and went for a traditional route with an elder caucasian man.[12] Sommer was invited by Ratner following their collaboration in The Family Man.[30] Bill Duke appears as Trask, the head of the Department of Homeland Security. Trask aids the president of the United States during the war against the mutants. The character is probably related to the comic books' Bolivar Trask; however, his first name was never mentioned in the film and he is portrayed as African American. In the comics, Bolivar Trask is the head of Trask Industries and creator of the mutant-hunting Sentinels. Eric Dane appears as James Madrox / Multipleman, a mutant and thief recruited by the Brotherhood in a prison truck. Madrox has the ability to create a very large number of copies of himself. The writers considered Dane's performance memorable despite being featured in only two scenes.[30] Madrox's wardrobe invoked the symbols worn in his comics costume.[12]

Other actors who portrayed mutants were: Meiling Melançon as Psylocke, a mutant with the ability to teleport herself through areas of shadow, although that depiction differs significantly from the comics; Omahyra Mota as Arclight, a mutant who has the ability to generate shock waves of concussive force; Ken Leung as Kid Omega, a mutant with the ability to eject spikes from his body, most notably his face (though the character resembles the comic books' character Quill and was later confirmed as such however, the official cast credits erroneously read "Kid Omega"); and Cameron Bright as Jimmy / Leech, a mutant who has the ability to neutralize the powers of nearby mutants. Various characters were included at the suggestion of editor Mark Helfrich, who brought Marvel's X-Men Encyclopedia to director Brett Ratner, searching for mutants who could make appearance. These include Phat, a mutant that is a very large man who can slim down to fit in a smaller space (played by two actors, Via Saleaumua – "large mode" – and Richard Yee – "small mode");[30] Spike (played by Lance Gibson), a mutant who battles Wolverine in the forest by extruding bony spikes from his flesh – the character was added because the editing team felt that the original cut of the scene portrayed Logan as a cold-blooded killer, which could be changed if another mutant attacked Wolverine before he struck the Brotherhood[33] and Glob Herman (played by Clayton Dean Watmough), a mutant with transparent skin. Mark Helfrich portrays an unnamed mutant with ash-gray skin.[19]

Various other mutants make cameos at the X-Mansion; Shauna Kain and Kea Wong reprised their cameo roles as Siryn and Jubilee respectively, and three identical girls in the background in one scene are a reference to the Stepford Cuckoos. Olivia Williams portrays Moira MacTaggert. Adrian Hough, who previously voiced Nightcrawler in X-Men appears as John Grey, Jean's father. X-Men co-creator Stan Lee and writer Chris Claremont have cameos in the film's opening scene as the neighbors of young Jean Grey.[30][34] The sergeant directing defensive preparations before the Brotherhood assaults Alcatraz Island is played by R. Lee Ermey.[35] Lloyd Adams portrays the green-skinned mutant that climbs the guard tower on Alcatraz. Many fans believed this was Toad; however, the credits list him as lizard man and Brett Ratner confirmed it was Anole. Avalanche and Vanisher also appear; however, it is not known who portrayed them.

The marketing for The Last Stand was darker and more ambiguous compared to the two predecessors. 20th Century Fox president Tom Rothman declared that the decision was made so the film would "be different from all of the other movies in the summer," with a campaign that "wanted people to stop and not have it be so immediately apparent that we're selling a movie. We're interested in selling an emotion and an idea."[81] The film's official website was launched in October 2005.[82] The teaser trailer release with King Kong the following December[83] was done in conjunction with the studio releasing the film's first official screen shots of the film to USA Today.[84] Diamond Select Toys created a toy line, scanning the actors from the film with likenesses for the first time in the trilogy.[85] Additional product tie-ins came with Harley-Davidson[86] and 7-Eleven.[87] A seven-minute sneak peek aired on Fox Broadcasting two weeks before the film's theatrical release.[88]

Del Rey Books published a novelization of the film, written by comic book writer Chris Claremont,[89] while Newmarket Press published The Art of X-Men: The Last Stand: From Concept to Feature Film.[90] Claremont also worked on Activision's tie-in video game, X-Men: The Official Game, doing the script along with screenwriter Zak Penn. The game's story bridges the events between X2 and The Last Stand,[91][92] featuring Wolverine, Iceman and Nightcrawler as playable characters, voiced by their film portrayers Hugh Jackman, Shawn Ashmore, and Alan Cumming. Patrick Stewart also appears as Professor X.[93] The game was released to negative reviews and eventually underperformed commercially.[94]

In February 2006, Ratner said that The Last Stand could be the final X-Men film: "We wanted to make sure the audiences knew that this was a trilogy. Even though they weren't made together like Lord of the Rings, this is really closure for the X-Men series. ... This is the last stand for sure."[141]

The next two X-Men films, X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009) and X-Men: First Class (2011) were prequels that took place before the events of the first X-Men movie. The first film set chronologically after The Last Stand was The Wolverine, released in 2013. A stand-alone sequel,[142] The Wolverine shows Logan heading for Japan to escape the memories of what occurred during The Last Stand. Hugh Jackman and Famke Janssen reprised their roles, while Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart appear in a mid-credits scene.[143]

X-Men: Days of Future Past, the direct sequel to The Last Stand, was released on May 23, 2014, with Jackman, Berry, Stewart, McKellen, Paquin, Page, Ashmore, Cudmore, Grammer, Janssen, and Marsden reprising their respective roles.[144] The plot, inspired by the comic book "Days of Future Past" story arc, begins with a dystopian future set years after The Last Stand. Wolverine's consciousness is sent back in time, to his 1973 body in order to guide the younger Xavier and Magneto into preventing the events that lead to the desolate future. The events of the film end up retroactively changing the continuity of the series, changing some events in films set after First Class, resulting in an altered timeline where Jean and Cyclops are still alive.[37][127]

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