The X-Files: I Want to Believe

Disclaimer: this review will not expound upon The X-Files television show. Not a word about Mulder’s (David Duchovny) sister, extra terrestrial beings, or unresolved plot points which series aficionados long to have resolved in The X-Files: I Want to Believe, the second onscreen adaptation of the popular Fox show. Director and show creator Chris Carter was insistent that this picture be a “stand alone” piece requiring no knowledge of Mulder and Scully’s (Gillian Anderson) previous investigative exploits or the show’s overall mythology. In fact, if you believe your enjoyment of the film to be predicated upon an alien or paranormal story line, then disappointment is inevitable. Check said phantasmic expectations at the snack bar and attempt to find value in what its story does afford, an exploration of faith and the reunion of two iconic television characters. Though, ultimately, the movie is wrought with its fair share of problems. Even longtime fans will find that it takes a willful exertion of energy to derive pleasure from this drama-mystery.

This time around, Scully is immersed in her job as a physician, where she butts heads with faithless cohorts who do not trust her ability to cure the ails of a young patient. Mulder, meanwhile, has grown a shaggy facial mane and holed himself up in his office, finding amusement in impaling the ceiling with pencils. When an FBI agent disappears, bureau new school-ers Dakota Whitney (Amanda Peet) and Mosley Drummy (Alvin “Xzibit” Joiner, who is a refreshing presence in the film) call on Mulder and Scully to assess the verisimilitude of an erratic, pedophilic priest, Father Joseph Crissman (Billy Connolly), who claims to have psychic visions that will lead him to the missing woman. His eyes bleed blood and he collapses into unexplainable epileptic fits, but that’s as unearthly as the story gets. While Scully, thoroughly disgusted with Crissman’s sordid past, cannot see past his trespasses to determine whether or not he is flat out bullshitting, Mulder chooses to have confidence in the man, utilizing him as a human metal detector, so to speak, that will lead them to the agent.

There is a romantic subplot at work, and where Duchovny and Anderson dramatically succeed is in communicating subtle sexual tension and their genuine tenderness for one another. While their love is convincing, the rickety plot, which melds clairvoyance, religion, and a preposterous Frankenstein-esque medical quagmire, fails in getting us to, well, believe. Where movies of this model typically thrive is in persuading viewers to dismiss all doubt, to invest themselves in the riddle even if it ends on an ambiguous note. The X-Files: I Want to Believe, with its awkward springing from missing person’s plot to underdeveloped meditations on piety to brief hacksaw action sequences, never blooms into a cohesive whole. These awkwardly cobbled together episodes remain irreparably disparate, which is a malignant flaw for any film, but especially for one like this, with such grand thematic aspirations. There is one sparkling moment that affords some welcome unadulterated humor. It would be punishing to spoil said joke, but I will disclose that it will incite you to whistle the show’s theme song after exiting the theater. Take this morsel of entertainment and savor it, because there’s not much else to feast on.

—Heidi Atwal
07.25.08