We open in the White House, the Secretary of Defense's office to be exact. Going past the door, we enter the room where newly appointed secretary is hard at work. . Suddenly, there is a tall shadow in the doorway that dwarfs him. “Mr. Trask?” says the silhouetted figure. The person on the phone looks up to reveal Bolivar Trask (Peter Dinklage). He apparently has come a long way since Days of Future Past and, judging by his conversation with the new President of the United States on the phone, seems to have accepted that mutants, but doesn't necessarily trust all of them. Though, it should be believed that there is new tolerance for mutant kind with Magneto having not been a blip on their radar for quite some time. Trask, having been released from prison early for good behavior, must have used his connections to worm his way into this position. Politics can be weird sometimes. When asked how he got in there, the mysterious man in the doorway answers “I have my ways.” Trask is about to call security when the shadowy figure drops a few files with pictures of newly built Sentinels on his desk. These models look much bigger than the ones that Trask created.
“I figured you would be happy to know that your work lives on,” this man exclaims as Trask finally gives the man his full attention. He is an older gentleman with white hair and a goatee that can only be found in the nineties. This man introduces himself as Bastion (Malcolm Mcdowell) and goes on about how Trask has decided to ignore his beliefs. He knows full well that mutants are still a threat to global security. Trask argues that it has been ten years since the “problem” in Cairo. “Which means we are past due for another despot believing himself to be a mutant God. The scary thing is that we have the means to protect ourselves from another mass culling in the name of mutant supremacy, but your boss would rather play the saxophone and glad hand to a bunch of Gen X slackers on the MTV than worry about national security,” Bastion remarks with contempt. Trask insists that they are protected by the X-Men. Bastion scoffs at this idea. He wonders if Trask was aware of the rumors that the man who disarmed the whole earth was disintegrated in a matter of seconds by one of these so-called X-Men? What happens when one of these vigilantes with no government affiliation or jurisdiction goes into business for themselves? Trask doesn't know how to answer him, but instead expels him from his office.
“Very well Mr. Trask, but when this fruitless attempt at civility with walking WMD's blows up in your face, please do remember this conversation.” Bastion steps out of the office, leaving Trask to contemplate this proposition.
Also, we just watched a scene where freakin' Malcolm Mcdowell had a heated conversation with Peter [frick]ing Dinklage!
The scene cuts to what appears to be a manufacturing plant somewhere in New Mexico. Bastion makes his way through security and meets up with one Steve Lang on a catwalk that overlooks a bunch of machines building something. Lang asks Bastion how it went, to which he answers “just as I expected.” Lang wonders if that worries him, but Bastion proclaims that that it is only a matter of time before they realize that having mutants police other mutants does not lend itself to the greater good. The camera pans down at the construction of a much larger Sentinel than we have seen before. When we focus back on Bastion he claims that “they are like dogs. You let a pack of them off their leash for long periods of time, at least one of them will take advantage of the situation and maul the post man. It isn't a matter of if, it is a matter of when, Steven.” By this point they have wandered past a television in the break room.
It is here where we focus to the news being presented on the television screen and transition to another scene entirely. The news reporter is Trish Tilby, a correspondent for the National News Vision, and she is outside the 1st Bank of Manhattan where there seems to be a hostage situation. She details that the suspects are reportedly mutants and they have been holed up inside for an hour without freeing any of their prisoners. Trish states that the level of mutant on human crime like this has been decreasing over the last two years, due in part to the cooperation of the mutant group known as the X-Men. Unfortunately, human on mutant crime has seemingly increased since the incident in Cairo ten years ago. She speculates that maybe this is one of the human hate groups that have formed over the last few years.
As we cut to inside the bank, Trish is proven wrong as the culprits are taking as much money as possible. The hostages cower in fear as a man who has flame throwers attached to his arms points at them. This is the mutant criminal known as Pyro. He asks one of his accomplices how it looks out there. Toad, who we last saw being liberated by Mystique in Days Future Past, looks through the blinds and notes that there are a lot of cops out there. Pyro, an Australian who is clad in unbuttoned Hawaiian shirt and wearing wire framed sunglasses with round lenses, notes that they will unfortunately have to retire a few of them to make their getaway. The apparent leader of the gang, Avalanche, says that they have come prepared for just that situation. Two other mutants, Vanisher and Mimic, come up from behind him, with takings of their own slung over their shoulders.
Cut to back outside where there is a rumbling from a bit down the street. Trish motions to her camera man to focus on the source of the noise. Cars fly into the air and back onto the ground as something big approaches in the distance. Trish notices cracks in the pavement from the force of nature. They finally get a good shot of this man, who appears to be a behemoth with a big red helmet. This is the Juggernaut, wanted in twenty states for robbery, destruction of property, and first degree murder. The news crew backs away as The Juggernaut launches himself into the cars as Police open fire on him. The bullets bounce off of him. The robbers make their way out of the bank, prepared to mow through any person who gives them trouble. Avalanche smirks that most of them are transfixed on the Juggernaut. Those that aren't aim their guns at the bank robbers, only for the ground to quake underneath them thanks to Avalanche's powers. All of the law enforcement fall to the ground. They are about to make their escape until Toad as they are distracted by the weather on this sunny day becoming cloudy only over this particular area of New York. They look up to the skies as the main X-Men movie theme begins to play...
OPENING CREDITS
… only for it to transition to something just as familiar. If you watched cartoons on Saturday mornings in the nineties, you will know the tune. The title sequence will probably look familiar too as we cut to a gigantic X-Men logo that is too big for the screen as we can only make out a sideways X. Rising from the top of the X is a fully operational blackbird as well as Storm (Alexandra Ship) flying around it. This will look particularly impressive in 3D. Storm and the Black bird, with Nightcrawler bamfing in and out between them, fly along the text that reads X-Men as Quicksilver (Evan Peters comes into the shot running on water. The camera then pans into the window of the Blackbird where Beast (Nicholas Holt) is at the controls, Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) and Cyclops are equally at the forefront, Jean Grey (Sophie Turner) is at Cyclops' side, while Jubilee (Lana Condor) pops a bubble while wearing incredibly unconventional pink shades.
NOTE: It is important to note that all of the costumes being worn are updated versions of the what they wore at the end of Apocalypse, but even closer to the Jim Lee designs. Jean's costume has a brighter color of yellow with bigger shoulder pads (while going down in fashion, shoulder pads took awhile to go out of style. Beast is wearing trunks. Cyclops' costume hasn't changed that much other than his straps being attached to a belt of the same color. Mystique is somewhat of a different story as her costume is white pants and a white top that shows off a bit of her mid drift. Yes, she is fully morphed in the blue skin here. Jubilee is a combination of looks here. As stated, she is still rocking the big pink shades, but also has the long yellow coat, earrings with her name on them, and the short hair she was rocking in the early nineties. Her actual costume is pretty much the standard dark red, yellow trim uniform from Generation X. Nighcrawlers' gear is reminiscent of his comics look from the waist up with the red V and pointy shoulder pads. He is wearing black pants with white boots and gloves. Storm and Quicksilver are pretty much the same from the way they looked at the end of Apocalypse.
The camera pans into Scott's visor and back out to where Storm, Nightcrawler, Quicksilver, and the Blackbird continue to jet past the title. They exit it the area as the camera close ups on the X that reverses backwards over the ocean and then explodes ...because nineties.
The title sequence cuts back to the bank robbery as the awesome orchestral version of the Animated Series Theme continues to plays. On the ground, Pyro begins to set off his flames on the cops who are trying to get back to their feet after that jolt from Avalanche. Just as fire juts out of his flamethrowers, rain pours down over them. He doesn't have time to wonder what is going on as lighting strikes down in front of him. Pyro looks up to see Ororo Munroe descending from the heavens. She appears in front of text that displays her code name. Toad whips his tongue at her, but it is caught by Nightcrawler who teleports them to the nearby rooftops. Toad tries to fight back, but he is in no way ready for a trained Kurt Wagner, who proceeds to toss Toad into a Water tower of the name NightCrawler appears on above the rooftops behind them. The black bird soars overhead with the back hatch opening up for Jean Grey to float out using her telekinesis to levitate herself, Cyclops and Mystique downwards. Her name appears behind her as they descend into the chaos below them. The Juggernaut is about to throw squad car into a building full of onlookers until an optic blast breaks it in two and Jean levitates both both halves gently down to the ground. The Juggernaut, not happy that his destruction was interrupted, turns toward Scott with great fury. He towers over the co-leader of the team. With no fear whatsoever, Summers flashes a boyish smile before unleashing an optic blast upwards towards Juggy's helmet. Behind him, the name Cyclops appears.
We cut to Pyro, who is throwing fireballs at Storm, in the cross hairs of sniper rifle. A cop on the rooftop of a nearby building is about to pull the trigger until a silver haired man is in front of his shot, shaking his head disapprovingly. He disappears, and before the cop knows it, his gun has vanished. We pan across to the bank again where Avalanche begins to create tremors toward Trish Tilby and her camera person. The ground cracks toward until a silver streak pulls her, then the camera man away from danger. Mimic, having faced the X-Men before, shoots an optic blast into the cops that are still trying to fight. One by one, the same silver streak gets them from harms way. With all of the remaining cops gone, the blast still looks to heading towards a building full of people. Before it hits them, Quicksilver re-appears with a steel door of some kind, shielding himself and the building from the blast. His code name races along with him as he runs with the door towards Mimic, knocking him into a pillar with it
As Storm dodges Pyro's flames, Toad hops down next to Avalanche. Avalanche is about to make a hasty retreat when Toad sweeps the legs out from under him. Toad morphs into Mystique and hits Avalanche with a roundhouse kick as her name pops up behind her. With the Blackbird having landed on a nearby rooftop, Beast leaps into action with Jubilee pig backing on him. He hits ground level and Jubilee dismounts, running towards the action at the front of the bank. Beast turns to see that Cyclops and Jean are losing ground with the Unstoppable Juggernaut. He back flips onto Juggy's shoulders, pulling up on his helmet. The Juggernaut attempts to punch at him, but Dr. Hank Mcoy does a hand stand to avoid those. Cyclops nails him with an optic blast to the mid-section allowing for Hank to pull off the helmet as his code name appears behind him.
Across the way, the Vanisher drops his money and attempts to disappear. Unfortunately, as he is doing so, he runs into Jubilee. She blasts fireworks into his eyes, blinding him and forcing him to become visible again. As she gives another burst, her name shoots out in their own fireworks behind her. The Vanisher turns around into a dropkick from Nightcrawler, who just happened to bamf back onto the scene.
With his helmet gone, Jean attempts to get in the head of the Juggernaut, which forces him to one knee. Toad is back on the scene and whips his tongue around her neck. He lets go as Cyclops blasts at him. Pyro battling Storm as she tosses lighting at him, shoots flames upwards as he back up toward The Juggernaut. Beast tosses Toad toward both them, but he lands on his feet. Vanisher, still somewhat blinded, stumbles backwards to where his three partners in crime are. Mimic is tossed toward them, but before he can land, Quicksilver is underneath him and hits him with an uppercut that sends him upwards again. Mimic then falls back down to the ground. Finally, Avalanche falls back as well. The criminals re-group, rising to their feet. They get up, looking towards the super hero team that stands in front of them. Storm levitates downward joining Mystique, Cyclops, Jean Grey, Jubilee, Beast, Nightcrawler, and Quicksilver as they are standing side by side. They stare down their opposition, who are getting up to their feet, one next to other. These mutant criminals know that there is no escape now, there is also no money. With the Animated Series Theme coming to its climax, the villains charge at the heroes, who themselves are running toward the fight. The camera pans out as both sides run at each other. Once the collide, we fade to black and the main X-Men movie theme plays as our official title appears on Screen.
X-Men: Fall of the Mutants
End Opening Titles