december 3, 2008
I was a huge X-Files fan up until Season Five. I stopped watching the show somewhere in the middle of Season Five as things began to change and fall apart. The X-Files is a great example of when a great show overstays its welcome. (Battlestar Galactica is a great example of a show going out with a bang). The X-Files would have been an awesome three or four season show, but it got dragged out to nine. I'm guessing this was because FOX saw the show's popularity peaked in Season Four and they just had to cash in for more. The first movie was released after Season Four and it was a hit, so it was no surprise that FOX made a follow-up movie: The X-Files: I Want To Believe.
While watching I Want To Believe, I really wanted to believe that it was a great movie. But, I couldn't. The movie felt like a bad episode of the show stretched out to two hours. The problem is that the movie tries to be a stand-alone film and all of what made The X-Files good was discarded. What is left is a standard fare thriller film that lacks much thrill. I did not even see why Mulder and Scully were needed in the film. Their roles could have easily been removed from the film and have instantly turned this film into what it is: A semi-decent direct-to-DVD movie. Everytime that Mulder or Scully showed up on film, I wondered why they were there. Why did Agent Whitney really need to call Mulder out of retirement, other than some sort of weird infatuation? Why bring Scully back if she wasn't going to work the case? What was up with all the coincidental stuff -- the printouts at the end of the film were quite a stretch.
The film dragged along. Slowly, very slowly until the end. Sure, there was a foot chase. But, that was the most I can remember from the film. The film tries to explore the greyness of good and evil (using, of course, a pedophile priest as the pivot character). In the end though, I was too disappointed and too bored to really care. For a film that brings The X-Files back after eight years, I had hoped for more. You may say that I had set my hopes too high. And I will ask, what's wrong with that? I expect a lot from The X-Files and after eight years, they could have done a lot better than this.
The only bright point in the film is the haunting score by Mark Snow.
<< back || ultramookie >>