The X-Files: I Want to Believe (2008) - A Raw Review!

Genre: Science-Fiction/Fantasy
Starring: David Duchovny, Gillian Anderson, Amanda Peet, Xzibit, Billy Connolly
Director: Chris Carter
Screenwriter: Chris Carter, Frank Spotnitz
Producer: Chris Carter, Frank Spotnitz
Composer: Mark Snow

RAW REVIEW

One of the worst films of the summer.

UK, July 29, 2008 - What a waste of time. The second X-Files movie installment limps onto UK screens this week, and a viewing of the film begs one, obvious question: why the hell did they bother?

This tedious effort begins six years after the finale of the TV series, with Scully these days working as a doctor in a church hospital, and Mulder now a paranoid recluse (wasn’t he always?) still searching for his missing sister.

Meanwhile nearby a local FBI agent has gone missing, with the only source of clues Billy Connelly’s seemingly psychic pedophile priest ‘Father Joe’. Despite having been kicked out of the bureau, Mulder is bought back into the fold because of his expertise with paranormal cases, and he persuades Scully to help him.

Without revealing any more, the plot managed to anger, unintentionally amuse and then finally bore us to tears during the interminable 100 minute running time. Imagine a really, really below-par X-Files TV episode painfully and unnaturally contorted and stretched into a feature-length production and you’re getting close to the horrible, bleak reality of I want to Believe.

It’s clear that scribe Frank Spotnitz and writer/director/series creator Chris Carter intended the film to be like an extra-scary, extended ‘monster-of-the-week’ episode - one that would appeal to both the film’s loyal fan-base and the younger movie-going generation who missed out on Mulder and Scully’s antics first time around.

In doing so however, they forgot the very basics of what made these episodes so phenomenally successful - at its best the show was thrilling, spooky and often terrifying - three qualities utterly absent from this dramatically and narratively bereft update.

Everything about the film feels rushed and cheap; from the deliberately smoky and dark settings (naturally filmed in Vancouver) and the confusing, shaky-cam chase sequences to the mediocre, low-rent supporting cast (including the likes of Xhibit and Amanda Peet). And we haven’t even mentioned the two-headed dog yet…

Gillian Anderson and David Duchovny do their best - the pair naturally still share an amazing on-screen chemistry, and through a combination of considerable acting talent and residual audience affection for their characters do manage to imbue proceedings with some emotional resonance.

TRAILER

Nevertheless, its no exaggeration to say that without their presence - and the words ‘X’ and ‘Files’ in the title - I want to Believe would have been a third-rate, made-for-TV horror thriller. That a pederast preist, (who “buggered 37 altar boys” according to Scully) ends the most well-drawn, sympathetic character, tells you all you need to know about how much of a colossal, ill-judged and badly-executed mis-step this movie is.