X Files: I Want to Believe, The |
  • USA / Canada • 2008 • 104m •   • Directed by: Chris Carter. • Starring: David Duchovny, Gillian Anderson, Amanda Peet, Billy Connolly, Xzibit, Mitch Pileggi, Callum Keith Rennie, Adam Godley, Alex Diakun, Nicki Aycox, Fagin Woodcock, Marco Niccoli, Carrie Ruscheinsky. • Music by: Mark Snow.      Fox Mulder and Dana Scully both worked at the FBI as partners, a bond between them that led to their becoming lovers. But now they're out of the FBI and have begun new careers. Scully works as a staff physician at a Catholic hospital. Her focus these days is on a young boy with an incurable brain disease. Administration wants to give up on him. Scully, who feels a special bond with the boy, does not. Meanwhile, Mulder's focus is on clipping newspaper articles, throwing pencils into his ceiling and writing about the paranormal. Scully and Mulder are brought together as partners again when a special case requires Mulder's expertise and Scully is prevailed upon to convince him to help. The case involves a pedophile priest who claims he is having psychic visions regarding the whereabouts of a missing FBI agent.
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Review:
The opening scene is fantastically executed and, in true X-Files Teaser fashion, opens up the story within the first few minutes. Billy Connelly, whose performance as Father Joe is one of the many highlights of this movie, exclaims "It's here! It's here!" The same words being echoed from every fan across the globe queueing to see this long awaited movie.
What I loved about the film was not just the familiar rapport between Mulder and Scully, but also the little gifts Chris Carter provided for the fans. Mulder's sunflower seeds, the pencils in the ceiling, reference to Luther Boggs and Clyde Bruckman, the crew member's names in Mulder's phonebook, and even their son William gets a mention. The one burning question I have been dying to have answered was whether or not Skinner was still alive, and this was finally answered, despite very limited and wasted use of this excellent character. Despite needing prior knowledge of the series to understand any of these scenes, they were pulled off without non-viewers really becoming confused because they were not laboured upon. They merely slipped in and out again while the casual viewer was reaching for another handful of popcorn.
What I found confusing was the way in which the movie treated the series finale with very little respect. We have to imagine that these characters have been hiding out for the past 6 years. The last time we saw them they were taking refuge in a motel room in Roswell after Mulder had escaped the death penalty. Scully was an accomplice to his escape, so therefore we leave them as fugitives. Two helicopters had been sent earlier and attacked the caves where they thought Mulder and Scully were, leaving them dead as far as the bad guys were concerned. This provided enough to reasonably assume that the conspirators would now stop looking for them, which is how they've managed to stay alive until now.
However, the whole ending of the show was near enough urinated all over by this movie. First of all, Scully is working as a medical doctor using her real name, which I would have assumed she would not do if she was a fugitive on the run. Then suddenly the FBI turn up wanting to speak to Mulder. So, it was known they were alive all along and they have just been left alone. It seems Mulder has been wasting his time in hiding for 6 years! "If you help them, they say all is forgiven," says Scully at the beginning, trying to enlist Mulder's help. She also goes on to say how the FBI knows where they are and were probably just happy to have Mulder out of their hair all these years. It seems a very slap-dash and convenient way to brush aside the terrible situation we left them in back in 2002. I would also be willing to understand if the FBI had wanted to bring him out of hiding to help fight the forthcoming apocalypse of 2012, but it was nothing of the sort. Bringing him out of hiding to find a missing FBI agent just seemed all very unimportant and not well thought out by Chris Carter.
Despite the very brushed over and rushed beginning, this movie still provided us with quite a good extended episode and continuation of The X-Files world, which I kind of see as a season opener. The ending was left very open and if you sit back and take it all in, you realise that there has been no character progression. They are both back where they were in the beginning of the movie. Mulder and Scully have their ups and downs during this movie, pretty much break up and get back together again, but are still in the same place by the time the credits roll. Nothing has progressed. Other than the fact that Mulder probably doesn't really need to hide anymore! The series finale "The Truth" was a very good story to end the show on. Darkness loomed, and our favourite agents were left to contemplate the inevitable end of the world. However, this movie gives no reference to that, and serves as the stand-alone story we were all promised. I will be really annoyed by the release of this movie if this is now how they are going to leave it. It would not do the X-Files world justice. However, if this is the beginning of a new franchise of films, then I will welcome this film's release with open arms and celebrate it as the return of The X-Files.
Don't get me wrong, I had a great time watching this movie, which is why I have still given it 1010. It was nice to see Mulder and Scully back together on screen, but this is definitely not the way to end it, as I'm sure there are many more X-Files stories that could be told.
It would be nice to get back on track now and finish what was started. The next movies should get back to the heart of The X-Files, conspiracies, lies, truth, and at least re-visit the mythology to round it up for some closure. Even if we have to wait until a 2012 movie release to handle the forthcoming plague in "The X-Files 3". I'm sure I'm not on my own when I say that.
Review by Jay McCreary from the Internet Movie Database.
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