YouSeenThat.com: Film Review
The X-Files: I Want To Believe
by Jamie - August 10th 2008
“I was praying for werewolves.”
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I'll hazard a guess and say that you are probably reading this review because you are, or were, a diehard X-Files fan? I'm also going to use my awesome skills of deduction to prophesize that you have already rushed to your local cinema to view this latest instalment... ranted about it on Internet... told your non X-Files watching friends to stay clear of it? In all honesty, I can't see this film appealing to anyone other than fans of the show, or possibly a couple of old senile folks who stumbled into the wrong cinema. Let's face it, this isn't 1994, the optimum target audience for an X-Files film has all but dried-up over the last decade. Don't get me wrong, I was a huge fan of The X-Files back in the early 90's, however I all but gave up on the show around season five or six - just before they replaced Agent Mulder with a T-1000 liquid metal Terminator. I suspect that the timing probably coincided with Duchovny's crazy notion that he could conquer Hollywood with shite films like Evolution. Hmm, come to think of it, yeah, it would have been about then. Like most long-time viewers looking for a little closure, I returned for the final episode, but ultimately it really missed the mark. The whole debacle left a sour taste in my mouth, to the point where I wanted to completely wash my hands of this once brilliant series.
I was hoping that The X-Files: I Want To Believe would dilute some of that bitterness.
For all intents and purposes, The X-Files: I Want To Believe is a standalone story set after the completion of the television series, and bares little, if any, connection to the 1998 movie The X-Files: Fight The Future. Set in the present day, Mulder (David Duchovny) and Scully (Gillian Anderson) are called back to assist the FBI when a former priest claims to be receiving psychic visions pertaining to a kidnapped agent. Like the good old days, Mulder and Scully must work together and solve the mystery in order to save the life of this kidnapped FBI agent - that's assuming that they are not already too late.
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It's hard to believe that it has almost been ten year since I watched the original X-Files film, Fight The Future, at my local cinema. To be honest, I can't really remember a great deal about the film, aside from the fact that it had something to do with bees, alien invasions, that alien bounty hunter and some sort of government conspiracy - I've never bothered to re-watch Fight The Future in the decade since. Films based on TV series rarely work as a contained two hour piece of work, and given the way that the television show ended with a whimper, this new incarnation already had a fight on its hands trying to garner interest from a guy who considered himself a fan, let alone Joe Q Public. Even the trailer failed to do this film any favours: Billy Connelly running around in the snow like a headless chicken for two minutes - it was hardly going to pull anyone except for diehard X-Files fans.
Hmm, you know what? Billy Connelly running around in the snow like a headless chicken... the trailer was absolutely spot on. I'd love to spoil the entire film right here and now, not because I'm a complete arsehole (you already know that I am), rather I'd love to spoil it just to save you some hard-earned cash. Times are tough, fuel prices are insane, interest rates are high - why throw money away on subpar films? However I won't ruin it for you. Just let me say that the storyline is, well, absolutely pathetic. Completely and utterly pathetic. Pathetic to the point that it would barely cut the mustard as a standalone one hour episode, let alone a film that warrants nearly two hours of screen time and the price of a cinema ticket.
What have we got? We have a missing FBI agent. We have a paedophile priest (is there any other type) that seems to have some sort of physic powers that are used to guide the FBI in tracking this missing agent. We have the FBI running around on the whim of this paedo priest, finding clue after clue with no worthy explanation of his powers. We follow him here, we follow him there, we follow this paedo priest everywhere. Whenever the story is getting a bit slow, up pops our favourite banjo-playing comedian with yet another out-of-the-blue physic prediction. Quick Scully, to the Batmobile! Suddenly off we roll from one crime scene to the next, guided by a physic priest - now if that isn't Deus Ex Machina on steroids, then I'm a fucking monkey. I almost get the feeling that Chris Carter just forgot how to use good old story telling devices like, well, you know, finding clues and shit in order to move the story along. Even the kids show Blue's Clues got that much right.
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If all of that that wasn't painful enough, Carter also decides to pepper the entire story with religious leanings, spearheaded via an exploration of the Dana Scully character. While there were a number of X-Files cases that dealt with religion, Carter lays it on so thick that this film should have been called The X-Files : I Want To Believe In God. Personally, I don't give a rat's proverbial about which fictional character you pray to at night, but the whole theme became pretty sickening by the time the film reached its conclusion. Theological pontificating may be fine in small doses, but not constantly throughout the course of a feature-length film.
Maybe I'm a tad harsh? Nope, they had a decade to get this right. Of course when you rubbish a film like this, the typical response from fanboys and fangirls will undoubtedly be that you didn't understand the complexities of the interpersonal dynamics, and that this film is far too intellectual for a rapscallion such as yourself. My response: get bent. There's nothing I like to do more only a Saturday night than to meet up with my Yale buddies and wax lyrical about the misinterpretation of William Wordsworth and similar pioneers of the Romantic Age of poetry, well, either that or we just sit around and do a lot of cocaine... but let's not kid ourselves - this was absolute rubbish. No self-respecting screenwriter would be caught dead trying to use such Deus Ex Machina bullshit in order to move a story along, even in a film with a potential for supernatural leanings. I'm surprised that Carter has - maybe he's been off the horse far too long. I'm sorry, but I would have rather paid to have seen Duchovny in his Californication persona banging Scully on a desk for two hours straight, all while the kid from The Nanny punched him in the face a whole bunch of times. Now that's entertainment!
So? Did The X-Files: I Want To Believe serve to dilute any of my bitterness toward the way the series ended? Negative. Sadly, the whole ordeal only served to sully my memories of The X-Files even more.
Typically with films like The X-Files: I Want To Believe, your humble reviewer can simply play a Get Out Of Jail Free card and say 'this is a must for diehard fans'. I'm not going to play that card here, I suspect that even diehard fans may find this film extremely disappointing. While it was great to see Mulder and Scully back on the screen, the storyline felt half-baked and relied on ridiculous devices like the physic priest in order to move the story along. Normally I'd just go and buy the DVD's from the television series, but atlas, I've put off buying The X-Files on DVD simply because I know that season six and onward are hiding in there toward the end. It's kind of like buying a fancy sportscar with the knowledge that the engine is going to explode in a fireball the second you inevitably shift into top gear.
POTENTIAL SPOILERS BELOW (Highlight text with your mouse): So you are probably wondering what the deal is with my by-line about the werewolves? Well back in January there were some 'leaked' photographs from the set of I Want To Believe, basically it showed a guy dressed in what looked like a werewolf suit. Let me assure you that there are absolutely no werewolves in this film. I wish there were some bloody werewolves. It might have almost made the actual piece of crap story watchable. END OF POTENTIAL SPOILERS.
The A.D.D. Version:
Two hours of Deus Ex Machina and twaddle that is barely worthy of a television episode of The X-Files - I Want To Believe is a final kick in the teeth to long-time X-Files fans.
Random Observations:
See This Film If You Like:
The YouSeenThat.Com Popcorn Rating:
This was very close to an 'Empty Bucket' - a bikini-clad Scully during the end credits just pushed it over the line into 'Bloody Ordinary' territory. They should have called this piece of crap 'I Want To Believe In God' and just thrown in some werewolves.
How does the YouSeenThat.Com Popcorn Rating work?
Well, it works on the theory that the more you enjoy a film, the less likely you are to be aimlessly shoving salty corn kernels into your gob, and a little more focused on what is happening in front of you on the big screen. Therefore, the more popcorn in our scorers bucket, the better the film. Pretty simple, huh?. Think of it as an inverse scoring system.