Nerds That Geek Movie Review - 'X-Men: The Last Stand'

​Written by Scotty

As one story ends, another one is written and The Last Stand has come to pass. With the loss of Jean Grey, the X-Men are having problems in coping, but none more so than Scott Summers (Cyclops). With the woman that he loved gone forever, Scott withdraws from his former post of being Professor Xavier’s right hand man and tries to find a reason for going on. Not being able to find this in the mansion, Scott takes a drive up to the lake that swallowed his life, only to find that there is someone in the depths that is looking for him. Jean is alive and well, but the fire within her is greater than ever before and since she does not have the control of the Phoenix inside of her, Jean has become one dangerous being.

Hearing about the loss of Scott, Xavier knows that Jean is back and sends the X-Men to find her before she falls into the wrong hands. As she is brought back to the mansion, Xavier lets out a secret that nobody knows, he has been controlling Jean, keeping the Phoenix at bay in the back of her mind. Logan does not agree with the Professor’s admission, but Xavier knows that what he is doing is for the best of mankind. When Jean wakes up however, she is not the same woman that Logan knew and after questioning what happened to Scott, he sees that she is much more powerful than she previously was. Wanting to find a way to break through the barrier that the Phoenix has built, Logan sees that there is still a little bit of Jean left in the shell and he is the only one that will be able to release her from her fiery dark side.

The government is working their hardest to keep their captured mutants behind bars and has been lucky enough to add Mystique to their collection.  Knowing that Magneto will be looking for her, they have mobilized the prison cars so they will be next to impossible to find, but they know that nothing will last forever. But the biggest news coming out of Washington D.C. is that they have discovered a cure that will suppress that mutant gene for good. Releasing the information worldwide and opening up the island of Alcatraz for treatment, the mutant community is torn on how to respond. With plenty of mutants not willing to acknowledge that there is anything wrong with them, there are a few that would like to live a normal life and will line up for the cure.

Magneto is gearing up for war and this is more of the fuel that he needs to throw onto the fire. After Mystique is shot by a cure weapon, there is little to keep other mutants from joining his Brotherhood to end the cure. Hank McCoy is trying to take a different route and when talking to his fellow X-Men about what to do next, it turns out to be too late and Magneto is already targeting the cure offices. Knowing that he cannot win the war on his own, Magneto is able to convince the Phoenix to stand by his side while making humanity pay for what they are planning to do. But the X-Men will not stand idly by and watch as Magneto kills the innocent and take a stand with the humans once again, but this time the battle may be more costly than ever before.

The third move of the franchise has come and gone and it is sad to see the end of Jean Grey, Scott Summers, Professor Xavier and countless mutants and humans alike. With so many more mutants that you have ever seen in a movie, it is a nice change of pace to see how they are all making it through such troubling times.  Even though they are outcasts, many have formed their own groups and have meetings about what to do next, especially when news of the cure comes out. The one thing that I did not like about this movie is that all of the X-Men seem to be angry with one another. I don’t understand what the driving force of this was, but even Xavier is snippy and taking out his frustrations on Wolverine, while Rogue is mad at Bobby for having a female friend in Kitty. 

Overall the movie was not that bad, being made out to be the final film in the trilogy, they were trying to end the story, but there was still too much to tell. I really liked the little back story on Jean Grey and seeing how powerful she was as a youth and then later seeing it all unleashed in her childhood home and on the Golden Gate Bridge. Watching as Magneto has to deal with the loss of his dearest friends in Mystique and Xavier was also good for his development. The showdown between Bobby and John, Iceman vs. Pyro was a long time coming and even though it was kind of short, it did not disappoint. It was sad though to see that Rogue had given up on her powers and chose the cure over being who she really was to be able to touch the boy she loves. With so many storylines going on in this movie, it is hard to latch on to one, and the action is spectacular, but you know what, even though this should have been the end, we have a some more movies coming up. Time to watch the origin story of Wolverine.

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