The X Files: I Want to Believe

x-files:i want to believe and step brothers

how about i believe i want my eight fifty back.

not an alien one in that damn thing.  i got excited for a second when one dude kinda looked like an alien, but no.  his head was just all messed up.

that’s some of that old bullshit right there.

it was like a bad season ending two hour episode.

i couldn’t figure it out, have scully and mulder been living together since the last movie?  why is the plot being plowed through only mulder and scully in the bedroom?  and no, we don’t even get to see dana scully get plowed by fox mulder.

that would have been worth my eight fifty.

but not that soap opera reject bullshit.

i thought for a second they might be trying to set up a spin off series with mulder and new character played by amanda peete.  but then they killed her off.

i felt embarressed i sat through the whole thing.  to make myself feel better i snuck into step brothers.  so it’s only like i spend four and a quarter on each.

step brothers is certainly no old school.  or ricky bobby.  or anchorman.  or even that terrible woody allen movie will ferrell did.  but it has it’s moments.  and those moments are pretty damn funny.

i’m not even sure they had to script this one.  hey will and john, you guys just go out there and act like a couple spoiled twelve year olds.  some of the stuff they do is funny.  some of the stuff they say is funny.  just like real twelve year olds.

and like a couple of real twelve year olds you are ready to ditch them in like fifteen minutes. 

Cal Reed

Honestly – who gives a shit? Another movie based on a TV series; a dearth of ideas buoyed by cynicism and desperation. Even David Duchovny looks detached from it… bored, listless, delivering his lines like a fax machine. Time was, The X-Files was a monster hit for Fox (the faceless multi-national corp., not Mulder). But that was the 90s. We were young. We thought shell suits were cool and that The Happy Mondays would last forever. Seeing The X-Files now – in light of Lost – it looks old. Those gormless 10.23pm West Virginia-subtitles, Duchovny’s complete and lasting inability to act his way out of a paper bag…that cheap, icy theme tune.

It sort-of starts well. A long line of FBI troopers are searching in the snow, led by Billy Connolly. The mere presence of Billy Connolly might seem to connote doom for the movie, but the sequence is brisk (the one and only time The X-Files has pace in this second movie) and the payoff is gory: a severed arm is found, perfectly preserved. It’s a man’s arm, but the Feds are looking for a woman. Connolly is a psychic who claims he knows where she is. For reasons I don’t quite understand, the FBI calls in Fox Mulder and Dana Scully for help with the case. Mulder has a lot of experience with weird cases. But wasn’t he fired? And didn’t Scully resign?

David Duchovny wears perhaps the false-est beard in movie history for about a third of this movie, and its shear, brazen fake-ness is mesmerizing. Not so Duchovny’s acting schtick. I well remember a lot of talk when The X-Files first started, about how intelligent Duchovny was, how he’d studied under Harold Bloom, how he wrote poetry. But, um, would it have hurt for him to act once in a while? Duchovny’s minimalism is so minimal he makes the average tree look like Marlon Brando. He speaks like he’s busy eating. There’s a parking lot in his eyes. He’s so disinterested in Mulder in the early scenes of The X-Files, his beard out-acts him.

Gillian Anderson looks like a nun. Or at least Scully does. Anderson has to have something devout about her in order to make Scully tick, because after a decade of seeing aliens, psychics, werewolves and goblins, Scully really has to believe there’s nothing out there in order to deny the truth. It’s a silly part, even sillier than Mulder’s after all these years. Scully doesn’t grow. She is not changed by her experiences. She just denies, denies, denies, as Anderson atrophies under pursed lips. Her chemistry with Duchovny is sort-of there this time round – but it’s the chemistry of two people trapped on a desert island, not two against the world. They look lonely together.

The plot tramps on as Duchnovy has a shave. Whenever we get too excited, director Chris Carter switches to a Scully storyline based around a sick kid she’s treating in hospital. This effectively strangles the thriller plotline – and any pace the movie had – but Carter seems to be aiming for the contemplative mood of a mid-season filler episode. The movie has a deathly quality… a phoned-in atmosphere, like everyone’s waiting for their paycheque to clear. Amanda Peet dies and no-one seems to notice.

If you’re going to make a movie, make it like the world was ending. The X-Files is irritating precisely because no-one in it cares. The supporting cast – a crappy rapper, an aging comic, a kohl-eyed woman who coulda been a contender – bear witness to the limited-ness of Chris Carter’s vision. The plot is anaemic, a photocopy of a photocopy of a plot done better in the TV show. The X-Files (the show) stopped when its viewers lost interest in conspiracies. Carter figures he can re-launch the franchise by wilfully ignoring the past. But having Mulder forget that he died, and making Scully forget… well, everything, is a cheat’s way out. This movie is pointless.

BACK COVER SYNOPSIS: David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson re-team to unravel a bizarre case right out of The X-Files. In the blink of an eye, admist a bone-chilling cold and an eerily deceptive calm, FBI Agent Monica Bannan is mysteriously abducted. But this is no ordinary kidnapping. And not only does the search for the missing women ignite sparks between partners Scully (Anderson) and Mulder (Duchovny), it defies the boundaries of science, the supernatural and the terrifying spaces in between!

FILM REVIEW: “The X-Files” was one of the biggest and greatest science-fiction television shows ever produced; to see its central concept and execution so poorly dealt with in this second film, and at the hands of series creator Chris Carter himself no less, is an absolute travesty. “I Want To Believe” is for a lack of a better description, boring, in every department. The story is creepy in its idea, but its execution is lame, subdued and pedestrian. The actors, including the normally good David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson, look like they are going through the motions to collect their hefty pay cheques. The first film at least had an epic scale and an energetic enthusiasm that tied in nicely from the show even if it did not satisfy those fans who wanted answers to the series’ most frustrating mysteries. “I Want To Believe” does not inspire you to do so in its story or plight. As a fan, this film is a devastating disappointment. As an average movie-goer, the film is totally forgettable.
Chris Carter, in one of his few right decisions on this film, chose to do a standalone story which allows the film to ditch most of the built up backstory which heavily bogged down the series in its final few seasons. Aside from a few references here and there, this film has no need to retread old ground to explain why things are the way they are now. Mulder and Scully are now reunited on an X-Files style case when an FBI agent is mysteriously abducted, and convicted pedophile Father Joe (Billy Connolly) begins to have psychic visions of her fate. Father Joe’s questionable past and his incoherent explanations of what is happening make Mulder and Scully retread some of their old sceptic versus believer grounds, but eventually they come together to solve the mystery of what is happening.
The main thrust of the film is sound, allowing Carter and his team to create a story in the shape of the old “monster-of-the-week” episodes from which the series became famous. Going down this road makes this film somewhat simpler than the alien conspiracy storyline of the previous film, giving it free reign to potentially explore fresh territory. The problem though is that it does not go anywhere interesting, in either a dramatic, character, visual or thrilling way. Mulder and Scully have numerous scenes where they spend agonising over dialogue about why they are so different from one another, and why they should or should not be pursuing the case, making for some very lengthy and dull expository scenes which is odd given the main concept should have freed the film from this problem. It is these scenes that are at times the hardest to watch because Duchovny and Anderson look like they are struggling to get through it all and still look interested. Their characters almost appear to be pale shadows of their former selves, and that is sad and hard to watch if you are a fan.
Given the original X-Files creative team’s ability to create wonderful, rich drama with great characterisations in a paranormal and spooky context, this film under Carter’s leadership is strangely and sadly devoid of these great qualities that helped to make the series so entertaining. Scully has a subplot involving a young boy she is trying to save that is not well connected to the main story at all to the point where one has to question why it is even in the film in the first place. The spooky, paranormal focus of the story largely remains unspooky and boring, if somewhat creepy towards the end. Billy Connolly does his best as Father Joe but he has not been given much to work with; the signature shot of him weeping blood is meant to be creepy but is ultimately a footnote barely worth remembering. And the film is sorely missing the supporting characters from the series, except for AD Skinner (Mitch Pileggi) who in effect has a thankless extended cameo towards the end that exists only for novelty value.
Carter is not a good visualist; the film is not imaginatively shot, giving the appearance of a two-part television episode as opposed to a film with flat images that do nothing to inspire the visual senses. The film is boring from the outset just from the way it looks.
The worst thing of all is that everything about this film is so boring and flat. Twenty minutes in to the film you will be looking at your watch or ready to switch it off and do something else. Being a fan of The X-Files, it is sad and hard to see such a quality franchise being treated in this way. It is evident from watching this film that Chris Carter and the original crew behind The X-Files are creatively spent on this franchise and need to move on. And if there are to be more X-Files movies, someone else needs to do them.

TECHNICAL REVIEW: There is nothing to fault with the transfer. The video transfer contains film grain but that appears to be how the film was shot as opposed to a transfer fault. The colours tend to be more monochromatic (again by the film’s visual design being set in the snow), but the visuals are faithfully represented on this DVD. The audio transfer is top-notch, creating an eerie atmosphere through the surrounds. Overall, a great transfer.

EXTRAS REVIEW: A handful of extras round out this DVD. The major extra is the audio commentary from writer/director Chris Carter and writer/producer Frank Spotnitz. They provide scene specific detailed commentary for what is happening on screen and how they went about getting it in camera, but the commentary is not particularly interesting in delivery; it’s more a case of “this is how we did this” or “we got this guy to do that who worked on every X-Files episode”. This is exemplified in the end credits where Carter chose to put stills of everyone who worked on the production over the credits and they both spend the entire time talking about that. Good to honour the work but not terribly interesting. There are two featurettes; the first is useless of Carter talking about how Ford supplied hybrid vehicles for the production, and the second is a slightly humorous overview of all the dead bodies created for the film by the special makeup effects crew. There are some deleted scenes, an extended gag reel, a music video and English subtitles. A decent extras package if not that extensive or interesting.

BOTTOM LINE: Rent it if you're a fan, don't bother otherwise.

FILM RATING: 5/10 -- EXTRAS RATING: 6.5/10 -- OVERALL DVD RATING: 5.5/10 

Todd Murphy <br />
http://www.allaboutmovies.net

BOTTOM LINE: It’s been six years since the sci-fi phenomenon “The X-Files” left television and all Chris Carter could come up with in this second feature film based on his show is another television episode. It’s not bad, but if you’re an X-Files fan you’ll be hugely disappointed that Mulder and Scully were not given the rousing cinematic adventure they deserved in this flatly-directed, small-scale, un-scary film.

THE GOOD: “The X-Files” set a new benchmark in science fiction for television with its two intrepid FBI agents, Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) investigating unexplained phenomena in weekly episodes. The series was cinematic in ideas, themes, characters and even visually. The first film, Fight The Future, carried on that legacy but shot itself in the foot by continuing a trend of frustrating the viewers by not revealing any details of the intricate government conspiracy/alien mythology storyline. In this new film, director Chris Carter wisely chooses to keep things simple, returning to the standalone monster-of-the-week episode the series made famous. “I Want To Believe” chooses to focus almost entirely on Mulder, Scully and the investigation they get dragged in to. With the exception of Mitch Pileggi who has an extended cameo as Walter Skinner, no other series regulars return for this instalment. This works in the film’s favour as the series became so bogged down with intricate character and plot developments that being released from that gives the film a better focus. In this case, the film is about the question of faith. What do you believe in? Why do you believe in it? Who do you believe in? These solid, ethical questions pour over the motivations of the characters, most obviously with Mulder and Scully who find their relationship tested in new and complicated ways over the case they are investigating, but also in the nasty subplot involving Father Joe (an effective and creepy Billy Connolly) and his connection to the altar boys he defiled and the unspeakable acts they are performing now because of Father Joe’s actions. In keeping things simple, director Chris Carter re-creates the feel of the early standalone episodes of the series; there’s an intelligent, investigative quality to the whole endeavour which is quite refreshing given the complications the series found itself in story-wise towards the end of its run. The film certainly captures the spirit and essence of the series, and seeing Mulder and Scully on the big screen once again is always a thrill.

THE BAD: After six years of waiting for a cinematic version of The X-Files, the film delivered by Chris Carter is nothing more than another television episode. Even the first film managed a certain cinematic scope despite its frustrating story aspects. To say this is disappointing would be an understatement. “The X-Files” has always provided fertile ground for potential big screen work with their iconic characters and fantastical plot lines but this film doesn’t even come close to getting there. On top of that, the film isn’t even scary. This film was meant to be a monster-of-the-week scare-fest and it doesn’t even deliver on that, despite the fact that the Frankenstein-style plot involving Russian doctors is freaky. Go and watch the first season episode “Tooms” and you’ll be more scared. Perhaps the most disturbing thing of all is that this is coming from Chris Carter himself; the almighty creator. What the hell happened? We know he can do good but maybe he’s been involved in this creation for too long that he couldn’t expand its scope beyond the confines of television? The Star Trek movies have suffered from the same problem. Maybe new talent needs to be brought in to freshen things up. All I can say after watching this film is that they should stop right now. If future films come out with the same level of production quality as this film, they will only tarnish the reputation of The X-Files and I’d rather see it rest than to have more episodes that don’t do cinematic justice to the material.

RATING: 6/10

Todd Murphy <br />
http://www.allaboutmovies.net