X-Men: The Last Stand (PG-13)
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Caution: Major spoilers!
This is the third movie in the X-Men film franchise. As usual, there's a great deal going on in this film. It begins with a flashback to 20 years ago, when Charles Xavier and Erik Lehnsherr together visited young Jean Grey, to recruit her. She clearly had a great deal of power. Next we see a scene 10 years ago, in which young Warren Worthington III is shaving his wings. Then we jump to the present (or not too distant future, anyway), with Wolverine and Storm leading a training exercise for some students at the Xavier Institute. Before long, we'll find that things have improved for mutants since the last movie. Dr. Hank McCoy (aka Beast; Kelsey Grammer) is currently Secretary of Mutant Affairs for the U.S. government, and people seem to be accepting mutants, for a change. Magneto is a fugitive, and Mystique has just been captured.
Of course, not everything is perfect. If you're reading this, I'll assume you've already seen X2, so it won't come as a spoiler to you when I say that Jean died at the end of that movie. Now, Scott continues to grieve for her, and heads to Alkali Lake, where he hears her voice calling him in his head. But then she appears before him in the flesh, alive after all. However, she ends up killing him. Xavier senses something, and sends Wolverine and Storm to Alkali Lake, where they find Jean, and bring her back to the Institute. Xavier then reveals that he had long ago set up mental blocks in her, to prevent her from accessing all of her powers, which are too intense for her to handle. And because of this, a split personality emerged. One was Jean, but one was the Phoenix, who has access to her full powers, but has little control, her actions being based purely on strong emotions like desire or rage.
Meanwhile, Warren Worthington II has developed a "cure" for mutants, which he wants to use on his son (Ben Foster), who has by this point embraced his own status as a mutant, and refuses treatment. Still, Worthington's lab is set up on Alcatraz island, and the cure is announced to the world. Some mutants want the cure, others protest its very existence. There is a group called the Omegas, who Magneto recruits into the Brotherhood. One of the Omegas, Callisto, has super speed, and can also sense other mutant powers, so she leads Magneto to where Mystique is being held. However, he abandons her when she is hit with the cure, and turns human. But while he's there, Magneto frees a couple of other mutants being held by the government, Juggernaut (Vinnie Jones) and Multiple Man.
Wolverine, not liking what Xavier has done to Jean, and what he is continuing to do, frees her, but... this is a bad idea, since she really isn't Jean anymore. Eventually the X-Men find her again, at the same time the Brotherhood do, and she kills Xavier, and joins Magneto, who is building an army of mutants, with plans to attack Worthington Labs. There is a young mutant there whose ability cancels out the abilities of other mutants when they get close to him, and it's his DNA that provides the basis for the cure. So of course, Magneto wants to kill him.
There are subplots about Rogue wanting to take the cure, so that she can finally touch her boyfriend, Bobby (Iceman)... though she's also jealous of his growing friendship with Kitty Pryde (Elliot Page), a mutant at the school, who can phase through solid objects. There is also a rivalry between Iceman and his old friend, Pyro, who has for some time been working closely with Magneto.
Um... I'm probably forgetting stuff. Of course there's a major climactic battle, with the X-Men helping the U.S. military on Alcatraz against Magneto's army. And... I don't want to give away anything more about this. But there are plenty of deaths throughout the movie, and... at least one of them I feel could have been easily avoided, though it would have been far less dramatic to do so. As for Magneto... well, his fate was a nice bit of irony, I thought (but it may not be permanent). But anyway... in the end, things once again seem good for human/mutant relations....
Um... maybe I should say something more specific about what I thought of the movie. It's hard to say, though. The special effects were great, the fights were great, I enjoyed the story, and I'd be glad to see another sequel someday (and I don't think "X-Men Origins" movies would really count). Anyway. It was good. *shrug* I dunno what else to say.