As the year slowly clocks up numerous returns a new Batman, the return of Indiana Jones, it’s time to welcome back another old friend, or rather two; six years after the final episode of The X-Files, Mulder and Scully are back in the second big screen outing. Strangely enough, although I was never a big X-Files fan this has been one of my eagerly awaited movies of the year.
For those that for years revelled in the will they won’t they hype regarding the romantic entanglements of agents Fox Mulder (David Duchovney) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) the answer to this is answered within a short time amount of time from the movie beginning; even though Mulder is on the run from the FBI; X-Files: I Want To Believe finds Mulder and Scully happily cohabiting in an isolated house in the middle of the countryside. It amusingly takes a little bit of time to get your head round this dramatic new development, for nearly ten years it was all the speculation of the show, now it’s dismissed as if it’s nothing. In my eyes this is the first of many mistakes for this new movie offering.
X-Files: I Want To Believe is cleverly devised that previous history is not necessary, the previous movie though an isolated piece all blended into the mythology of the show, this time round this is a straight up and individual story. After a rather brief appearance of the X-Files logo and the haunting whistle of the familiar X-files tune the story thrusts into the heart of the action. While the FBI aid a convicted paedophile Father Joe (Billy Connelly) in a search of a desolate snow and ice filled location the story cuts to a woman fighting for her life against two unknown assailants in the dark.
The two incidents are connected the woman attacked being an FBI agent. The fact that Father Joe is aiding the FBI through visions he has, leads ASAC Dakota Whitney (Amanda Peet) to the fugitive Fox Mulder, whom in exchange for help will have all his past “crimes” forgotten. While Mulder is plunged into the world of missing persons, Scully has her own battles, now an established Surgeon in a private hospital Scully opts to pursue her career rather than join Mulder on new adventures “We are ordinary people Mulder, we go home at night!” she tells him, adamant to leave the past behind and face the future. But Father Joe’s prophecies and his second sight are too much of a temptation for Mulder to turn his back on. The more Mulder probes, the more he is convinced there is a much bigger story than the simple disappearance of an FBI agent, and a giant pit of limbs seems to cement this fact.
What struck me most about this movie outing was that other than the unusual visions that Father Joe sees, this really is uncharacteristically not X-Files material. The main storyline of the movie is very much of this earth, nothing from the past, nothing from the future, a simple plain old murder mystery style thriller. The biggest downfall in this is that rather like the odd X-Files story when they focused on less fantastic issues, the story becomes a massive anti-climax; because what you have in essence is a 45 minute TV episode with a bit of blood and gore stretched to fit a 105 minute running time. Sadly I feel it my duty to bring you the news that there really is nothing special about this movie, its bland, tired, and to be perfectly honest all been done before. I won’t dismiss the movie as a right off, don’t get me wrong; there are some really good aspects. It’s just that after a year of hype I had some higher expectations, and sadly I suspect a few of you reading this will too.
That old X-Files humour is here, and in abundance; Mulder and Scully still get to play those slick little understated sex jokes that the fans loved. While the situations they encounter also allow for some much enjoyed humour. When our heroes first arrive at FBI headquarters you’re greeted by the X-Files theme just as they stumble upon a picture of George Bush, nothing needs to be said it’s blindingly obvious. While a lot of the humour is similar, it’s changed somehow Mulder and Scully are older and they have happily grown older together, it’s a different dynamic than before.
Both versions of the theme tune make an appearance during the movie, the original TV show version, and the booming orchestral piece from the first movie, without the airy fairy additions that the original movie had. After the first twenty minutes however the tune is ditched until the final roll of the credits, and again because the dynamic here is different it’s fairly appropriate.
Realising that age is something to take into account there is a big lack of action, all the running around is left to Whitney and Drummy (Xzibit) both reasonably younger and capable of taking on the action scenes naturally. Even then there is the lack of action full stop that we have come to expect from the franchise, one or two fairly straightforward action scenes.
While I enjoyed seeing Mulder and Scully back together again, I was less impressed with the overall feel of the piece. From the quick reveal of the relationship, the lack of extra terrestrial action, and a fairly damp squib of a storyline it’s an incredibly odd affair. But the biggest offence in my eyes is the lack of time Anderson is involved in the overall plot, choosing instead to focus on an important operation on a child suffering from an illness known as Sandhoff Disease, and while here case and the situation Mulder is investigating have certain common factors forcing her to get involved at the end, it’s really not enough. I’m also amazed by the lack of return characters, with the exception of Mulder and Scully only one other character makes a return, but I guess rather like time in the real world most people move on.
There is no need for me to even mention the performances, these are tried and tested actors put through familiar circumstances, and lets be real the money that 20th Century Fox will have invested in the movie, it’s not likely that they would allow some unprofessional actor on the set.
I sensed some disappointment in the voice of Gillian Anderson when quizzed about the role, she had this sort of matter of fact attitude about her in which it was best for the story; though further quizzing revealed that she found it incredibly difficult to return to the character she left behind six years ago “I’ve moved on so much, and while being active in smaller features I’m not quite so familiar with acting as I was make in the 1990’s”. I cannot help but think that maybe this difficulty reflected the amount of screen time she gets in the movie, don’t get me wrong we are not deprived of looking at the actress, just of the useful input she has. It’s been said that the movie has bombed stateside acquiring the number three place in the box office, but let’s be real released at the same time as the most anticipated movie of the year, against The Dark Knight, X_files was bound to play a second fiddle. Even despite this bombing of the fortunes of the movie, future tenses were thrown into the interviews with the cast. Anderson above all others gave the best indication that a third X-Files movie would be on the way, or maybe perhaps a “Special episode”. I get a distinct impression that regardless of how well X-Files: I Want To Believe does at the world box office, and despite my rather negative views that Mulder and Scully are not going to rest here; let’s hope next time however they have more to work with.
The movie opens in UK cinemas on 1st August.
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