X Files: Fight the Future, The |
  • USA • 1998 • 121m •   • Directed by: Rob Bowman. • Starring: David Duchovny, Gillian Anderson, John Neville, William B. Davis, Martin Landau, Mitch Pileggi, Jeffrey DeMunn, Blythe Danner, Terry O'Quinn, Armin Mueller-Stahl, Lucas Black, Christopher Fennell, Cody Newton. • Music by: Mark Snow.      After five years of chasing paranormal activity, the X-Files are closed by the government. FBI Agent Fox "Spooky" Mulder and his skeptical partner, Dana Scully, are reassigned to more mundane duties...such as bomb detail. Even so, Mulder gets more and more information confirming his suspicions about alien activity on Earth and a secret, international cabal of men protecting that confidential information. An outbreak of metamorphic alien activity in Texas provides the clues for the agents.
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Review:
Still, I'm happy to report that this film is a MOVIE, and not an "extended episode" of the TV series. It's far from perfect, to be sure, but it's still better than most of the schlock that Hollywood churns out these days. The plot involves a mysterious alien virus (known to us fans as the Black Oil - or maybe the Black Cancer, I got confused) which is trapped (and unleashed) in a cave in North Texas. Rather than simply taking overkilling its host, it now begins gestating its offspring inside its human host. The Syndicate, led by the Cigarette-Smoking Man (William B. Davis), attempts to cover it up by sending three victims of the virus to Dallas, where they've planted a bomb. But Mulder (Duchovny) and Scully (Anderson) are soon on to him, and with the help of a paranoid doctor (Martin Landau), they're soon taking on the Syndicate in an attempt to save Earth.
Duchovny and Anderson have always interacted well, and both play to their strong points in the films. The special effects aren't fantastic, but they're good enough.
The main problems I have with this film is: 1) lengthpacing and 2) supporting characters: 1) LengthPacing: It's well over an hour longer than the TV shows, and yet it moves way too fast IMO. The plot is developed well enough, but too quickly we're dragged from one set-piece to another. This leads to problem no. 2: 2) Supporting Characters: I didn't mind this as much as might have since the story was MulderScully centric, and of course Landau did a great job as the doctor (forget his name at the moment), but the show's regular supporting characters are sorely underused. The Well-Manicured Man (John Neville), A.D. Skinner (Mitch Pileggi), the Lone Gunmen (Tom BraidwoodDean HaglundBruce Harwood), etc., all appear only briefly and have little to do. WMM, played by Neville, an actor in the great British tradition, at least does something relevant to the plot; he helps Mulder find Scully and a vaccine for her, and then he's killed off. William B. Davis (the infamous Cancer Man) appears more often than his comrades, but has next to nothing to do and no real quiet scenes. The Lone Gunmen have ONE hilarious scene and then bow out for ever. Skinner does next to nothing besides lead Mulder and Scully to their hearing and speak to Mulder in the hospital. Even the "guest" stars, like Armin Mueller-Stahl, one of Germany's great actors as Strugholdt, the Syndicate's unofficial leader, has only two scenes in spite of top billing. To his credit, Landau (and indeed the whole cast) does good with what little they have to feed on, but they cannot be blamed for being underwritten.
Those flaws aside, this is still a very interesting mythiarc "episode", a good explanation into the events that began Season Six (which I saw BEFORE the movie) (though what happened to Gibson Praise [see "The End""The Beginning"] is not mentioned here), and all-and-all a fun waste of time. Could have been better, perhaps, but for what it is, it's great.
Review by Hancock_the_Superb from the Internet Movie Database.
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