X-Force
Genre: Action/Superhero/Sci-Fi
Director: Robert Rodriguez
Writer: Dwight Gallo
Based on Marvel Comics characters
Cast: Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Sophia Lillis, Andy Samberg, Rowan Blanchard, D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai, Rudy Pankow, Richard Dreyfuss, judd Nelson, Zach McGowan (cameo)
Plot: Cable (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) is back in his future that he and the X-Men fixed, finding himself as a soldier with no more war to fight. He struggles to get used to the peaceful future, interrupted by flashes of chaos and destruction in his mind. Cable begins to interpret these visions as a telepathic distress call from his daughter, Hope, who he sent to the grow up in the past several years earlier in a timeline safe from Apocalypse. He sees a darkness and a powerful force hunting down Hope, who is still a little girl in his mind. Believing Hope is in danger, Cable decides to return to the past to protect her. He activates his time-travel device, setting coordinates for the past to find Hope.
Cable materializes in the present day, emerging in the middle of a brutal Arizona desert sandstorm. The winds howl around him, whipping up the sand into a blinding cloud. Cable struggles to get his bearings as the sandstorm lashes at him, the powerful gusts threatening to knock him off his feet. As he tries to move forward, he realizes the sandstorm is causing damage to his equipment. His time-travel device, still strapped to his arm, sparks and malfunctions under the harsh conditions. Cable takes refuge behind a large rock formation, using it as a shield against the storm. He checks his equipment, assessing the damage, finding his time-travel device is beyond immediate repair. Despite that hiccup, Cable knows his mission remains the same: find Hope and protect her at all costs. As the sandstorm subsides, Cable makes his way to the outskirts of a high-security juvenile mutant detention center.
The detention center is run with an iron fist by the cruel Warden Rooney (Judd Nelson), who takes pleasure in controlling and punishing the young mutants under his care, using an advanced suppression system to keep the inmates' abilities in check. Many young mutants are kept in containment cells. Maria Callasantos / Feral (Rowan Blanchard) - a feral mutant with heightened senses and primal instincts. She was detained following a violent altercation in New York City that left several humans severely injured. James Proudstar / Warpath (D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai) - a mutant with superhuman strength and agility. He was captured after a mission to avenge his brother's death went wrong. Warren Worthington III / Angel (Rudy Pankow) - a mutant with large, feathered wings that grant him the ability to fly. He was arrested for using his powers to disrupt an anti-mutant rally. Hope (Sophia Lillis) - a powerful young mutant with the ability to psychically manipulate and mimic the powers of other mutants. She was arrested for petty theft for stealing makeup at the mall.
Cable infiltrates the detention center, neutralizing the guards around the exterior with ease. As he moves into the facility, Cable encounters more resistance. Alarms blare. Warden Rooney, alerted to the intrusion, orders his guards to stop the intruder at all costs. The guards engage Cable in battle. Cable uses his enhanced strength and weaponry to take them all down. Cable eventually reaches the cells where the young mutants are being held. He disables the power suppression systems, allowing the mutants to regain their abilities. Warpath rips the doors off of the cells with his enhanced strength. Hope creates an energy shield, protecting herself and the others from incoming fire from the guards. Feral uses her animal-like agility to take out several guards in an animalistic fashion. Angel takes to the air, his wings allowing him to swoop down and disarm guards from above. The group fights their way through to the facility's exit. They hear the sounds of a helicopter in the distance. The group wants to know who Cable is, but he says there isn't time for that and that they should follow him if they want to live.
The helicopter arrives to the detention center. The mercenary Wade Wilson / Deadpool (Andy Samberg) leaps from the helicopter, landing dramatically on the ground. He surveys the scene, realizing that Cable and Hope are already gone. Frustrated but undeterred, he sees a police officer on a motorcycle arriving nearby. Deadpool waves down the officer, brutally dispatching him by stabbing him through the face with his sword. Deadpool steals the motorcycle and the officer's sunglasses. He revs the motorcycle's engine and takes off away from the detention center.
Cable and the young mutants he broke out of the detention center steal an RV from a family camping in the desert to make their escape from the area. The ride through the desert is tense as the young mutants are still processing the chaotic events of their escape from the detention center. They once again ask who Cable is. Cable, behind the wheel of the RV, looks over at Hope and reveals himself to be her father. Hope's eyes widen in shock. She refuses to believe him. Cable, reveals to her that he sent her to the past when she was a baby to protect her from Apocalypse, who surely would have killed her if she stayed in the future. The RV begins to hover off the ground as Hope becomes upset. The other mutants hold on tightly. Cable says that he thought it was the only way to keep her safe, then when he learned she was in danger in this time period, he knew he had to come and keep her safe. Hope looks into Cable's mind and realizes that he is being sincere. Feral asks Cable what their next move is. Cable says they need to regroup, find a safe place to lay low, and figure out who wants to kill Hope. Angel asks what makes Hope so important. Cable tells them that Hope is more important than any of them realize - she very well may be the hope for all of mutant-kind.
Meanwhile, Deadpool is hot on their trail. Riding the stolen police motorcycle, he weaves through the desert landscape. He receives a call from his employer, Dr. Killebrew (Richard Dreyfuss), asking for a status update. Deadpool says that the targets are on the move before hanging up. Deadpool speeds down a long stretch of desert highway, encountering a roadblock set up by local law enforcement alerted to the breakout. Deadpool throws a grenade at the roadblock, which blasts open a path. Deadpool laughs with glee as he rides through the smoke and flames.
After hanging up the phone with Deadpool, Killebrew moves through his lab - a hidden Roxxon black site deep in the desert. There are dozens of cloning tanks - most cracked, leaking strange fluids. Inside some of them are misshapen, grotesque, half-formed clones of Wolverine using DNA samples salvaged from Essex's experiments. Nearby, one of the Wolverine clones thrashes inside its tank. Killebrew calmly notes that the clones are unstable - mental degradation, uncontrollable feral instincts - but he's close to perfecting the formula, he just needs more time and less interference. A figure from the shadows orders Killebrew to accelerate the timeline - he wants the clones ready - good enough to kill - even if it means sacrificing stability. Killebrew hesitates, arguing that he can't make it work on the timeline. The voice tells Killebrew that the clones will be released when he says.
Back in the RV, Cable spots Deadpool approaching rapidly in the rearview mirror. He quickly warns the mutants to brace themselves. Hope, Feral, Warpath, and Angel take positions around the RV, ready to defend themselves. Deadpool catches up to the RV, pulling alongside it and firing his guns at the tires. The RV swerves as Cable struggles maintain control. Hope uses her powers to create energy barriers, deflecting some of Deadpool's bullets away from the RV. Feral climbs out of a window and up onto the roof. She then jumps onto Deadpool, slashing at him with her claws. Deadpool, caught off guard, loses control of the motorcycle, causing him to violently crash, snapping his legs in half. However, he quickly regenerates and gets back on his feet, determined to continue the chase. Warpath smashes open the back door of the RV and throws an old beer keg at Deadpool, who dodges it at the last second. Angel takes to the air, using his wings to fly above the RV. Deadpool suddenly pulls out a small rocket launcher from a weapon case on the back of the motorcycle. Angel warns Cable, who makes the split-second decision to drive the RV off the road, sending it careening down a rocky canyon. The RV tumbles and rolls, finally coming to a stop in a dry riverbed.
Cable and the mutants emerge from the wreckage, battered but alive. The regroup as Deadpool emerges on the hill above them. He begins casually walking down with his weapons drawn. Cable orders the mutants to scatter. The group splits up, each taking different paths through the rugged terrain. Deadpool decides to follow Cable and Hope, leaving the others for later.
As Cable and Hope run through the desert, they find temporary shelter in an abandoned mining office. Cable begins to repair his weapons. Hope, frustrated and scared, confronts her father about the situation they're in. She demands to know why Deadpool is after her and why she should trust Cable after he abandoned her. Cable, struggling with his emotions, tries to explain why he sent her to the past to protect her from Apocalypse. He tells her that he's there now to make things right. Hope is still skeptical though. Before they can continue their conversation, Deadpool crashes through a window, gun blazing. Hope become emotional and creates a violent energy blast that levels half of the building on top of Deadpool. Cable and Hope escape the wreckage before Deadpool can manage to crawl his way out.
Cable and Hope reunite with Feral, Warpath, and Angel. Things are tense though. Feral and Warpath argue about their next move, while Angel tries to keep the peace. Suddenly a strange green creature, Doop, appears in front of them. The mutants are startled and confused by Doop, but Cable recognizes Doop from his time in the future. He translates Doop's strange gibberish language, explaining that Doop is offering to use his ability to manipulate reality and access pocket dimensions to assist them. Doop reveals that he sensed the disruption in the timeline caused by Cable's arrival and offers to help them escape Deadpool for the time-being. Doop creates a portal that takes them all to an abandoned mine shaft to rest.
Cable patches up his wounds. Hope sits curl up. Feral sharpens a knife with her claws. Warpath scrounges the mine for weapons. Angel plays with a beat-up deck of cards, trying to act unfazed. Nearby, Doop hovers lazily in the air, making occasional bubbling sounds. After a long silence, Hope laments that humans are always going to hate mutants, no matter what they do. Warpath angrily comments that it is always about control. Feral growls that trusting normal people is like a death sentence. Angel comments that he knows plenty of good regular people. Warpath glares at him. Cable, after hearing them vent, tells them that the world isn't going to change overnight - fear and hatred will always be there, for anyone different. Hope asks what the point is then. Cable tells the younger mutants that they are going to have to toughen up - physically, mentally, emotionally - to make sure the world can never break them. The group all nod. Doop makes another unintelligible sound. Angel asks what the flying pickle is saying now. Cable says that Doop suggests they stop running and start fighting back.
The next morning, Cable leads Hope, Warpath, Feral, Angel, and Doop across the barren desert, moving on foot after abandoning the RV to avoid being tracked by Deadpool - or anyone else looking for them. Cable explains that he pulled hidden coordinates from the detention center's database - pointing to an old facility tied to mutant experiments. Hope questions why they aren't just hiding. Cable tells her plainly that you can't run from the future - you have to face it to change it. As they hike through rocky canyons, they spot strange burn marks scorched into the sand. When they lose the trail, Angel flies ahead, spotting the half-buried facility wedged into the cliffs. Cable orders the group into formation and tells Doop to stay back. Doop makes a warbling sound and tears open a glowing rift, vanishing into it.
The team approaches the entryway of the ruined facility. A broken Roxxon Energy logo is half-buried in the sand. Security drones twitch in the corners, most dead, but a few still spark of life, scanning lazily. Warpath uses his enhanced senses to spot pressure plates and broken traps. Hope and Feral stick close behind Cable while Angel soars through the higher walkways. Suddenly, from the shadows, a hulking Wolverine clone (Zach McGowan) lunges at the group - bone claws sprouting erratically from its hands. Warpath rams the clone into a wall with brute strength. Feral leaps onto the creature's back, slashing wildly, but it shrugs her off. Hope briefly absorbs Warpath's strength and lands a punch that sends the clone sprawling across the hall. Cable unloads his rifle into the mutant, slowing it, but it regenerates, snarling. As they fight, Doop suddenly reappears from a glowing rift, slamming a massive, floating rock into the clone's face. The clone finally collapses. Alarms suddenly blare. Cable curses that whoever set up the trap now surely knows they are there.
Cable tells the group to keep their guards up, reminding them that somewhere in this facility is a scientist doing horrific mutant experiments. They move through the facility with precision, clearing room after room. Pressing deeper into the facility, they are startled when Dr. Killebrew steps out, standing in their path. Cable immediately raises his weapon, but Killebrew addresses the young mutants first, as if Cable doesn't exist. Killebrew explains that everything he has done - the clones, the experiments - are necessary as mutantkind will only survive through controlled evolution. Cable, furious, demands to know why Killebrew targeted his daughter, Hope. Killebrew smiles, revealing that powerful forces from the future have warned him that Hope Summers is the spark that will undo perfect order. As Killebrew monologs, Deadpool suddenly crashes into the lab, battered and bloodied, grinning under his torn mask. He opens fire on the team, sending them scrambling for cover. Cable returns fire, while Hope and the others fan out. Doop materializes midair, warping physics itself to redirect Deadpool's bullets back at him, stunning him long enough for Feral and Warpath to tackle him through a wall. Killebrew tries to slip away in the confusion, but Angel swoops down and cuts off his escape. Behind Killebrew emerges an entire wave of berserk Wolverine clones.
Cable and the young mutants retreat into a reinforced chamber, sealing the door behind them as the snarling Wolverine clones crash down the hallway after them. Hope asks what the clones are. Cable explains these are corrupted offshoots of a Weapon X program - unstable, feral, and not entirely finished. The clones breach the door. Feral uses her agility and claws to lure one clone into a cryo-storage chamber where she traps it in freezing gas. Angel darts through the rafters, distracting the clones as Cable and Warpath deliver powerful strikes. Doop creates an interdimensional loop briefly, causing one clone to be stuck in a time glitch - repeating its last step endlessly like a broken record. Hope almost gets skewered before Cable blasts a clone point-blank. Deadpool - regenerating yet again - bursts back into the action, slicing into one clone himself while muttering that no one kills these “stabby jerks” except him.
The team corners Killebrew again, this time he cowers, insisting he is just a pawn. Cable demands to know who gave him the clone DNA and the orders. Killebrew finally breaks, revealing the name: Stryfe. Cable freezes. It's a name he knows but hasn't heard in years. The same moment, a shimmering rift opens in the air behind Killebrew. From it steps a masked, armored figure. With one precise blast of psionic energy, he kills Killebrew instantly. The young mutants recoil. The masked figure gives them a long look... then vanishes through the portal as quickly as he came. The team reels from the encounter. The others notice that Cable is clearly rattled by Stryfe's appearance. Deadpool, frustrated that someone beat him to killing Killebrew, sarcastically offers to kill the next old white guy with a secret. The facility begins to collapse. Cable grabs a hard drive from Killebrew's lab before leading the team out. With no other choice, they flee across the desert again, finding brief shelter in an abandoned town.
At night, Hope sits alone staring at the stars. Cable joins her. She asks if he regrets leaving her in the past as a child. He tells her it was the hardest choice he ever made - and he thought he was doing it for her safety. She responds that she survived, but she had to learn how to be tough without knowing why. Cable promises he won’t leave her again.
Before dawn, Stryfe emerges from a portal atop a ridge overlooking the ruins of Killebrew’s facility. He activates a beacon - and from beneath the sand, a final batch of Wolverine clones rise. Back in the abandoned desert town, Cable deciphers Killebrew’s data and finally admits what he knows: Stryfe is him - or rather, a version of him. In another timeline, Apocalypse triumphed and molded Cable into a general of destruction. That Cable took the name Stryfe and now wants to preserve his timeline by erasing Hope and any chance of a better future. The mutants don’t fully grasp the multiversal complexity, but they understand what matters: this Stryfe wants Hope dead, and he’ll destroy anyone in the way.
As the team begins to pack up and start moving on, the team is attacked by the Wolverine clones. They surround the abandoned street front, circling them like wolves. Stryfe then emerges, facing Cable. Stryfe nods his head and the clones attack. Doop uses a wormhole to redirect one berserker clone into a dimension of never-ending mariachi music. Angel blinds two clones with a sand-glass explosion. Warpath gets pinned but is saved by Feral, who is wounded in the process. Hope, finally stepping into her power, uses her telekinetic strength and obliterates two clones with a single psychic burst.
Meanwhile Cable and Stryfe clash on Main Street. Their futuristic weapons shatter old storefronts around them. Stryfe taunts Cable, calling him weak for caring, for hoping. But Cable holds firm. When Stryfe tries to kill Hope, Cable unleashes his full power. Their blasts collide, creating a massive explosion. Hope stands over the collapsed Cable and unconscious Stryfe. She wants to kill Stryfe, but Cable stops her. He says killing him would make them no better than what Stryfe became. Instead, Doop opens a dimensional rift, and Stryfe - barely conscious - tumbles into it, screaming that this isn’t over. The portal seals behind him. Deadpool, covered in blood and body parts, finally kills the last clone with a bowling ball before realizing that the fight with the Wolverine clone has mangled his body from the chest down. With the immediate threat over, Cable admits his time travel device is fried beyond repair. Hope tells him good - she doesn’t want to go to the future. She wants to build something here. After a long pause, Cable agrees to stay. Feral, Warpath, and Angel gather around as the sun rises. Cable says they’re still targets. Enemies will keep coming. Hope asks what they’re supposed to be now. Cable says that they are X-Force.
Post-Credits Scene:
Deadpool's body is stitched back together haphazardly with duct tape, wires, and gum. He suddenly screams as one of his ribs visibly snaps back into place. He mutters to himself that he is done taking jobs to assassinate teen mutants.
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