The X-Files: I Want to Believe (extended cut) (review)

The X-Files: I Want to Believe (extended cut)

A disappointing, sometimes entertaining yet middling movie that will never live up to the show or the first movie. After watching the film, many people might ask themselves “What was the point?” And, I don’t have an answer for them.

I wish I could write that this follow up X-Files movie is a pleasant surprise, but sadly it isn’t. At times there are some well-directed atmospheric scenes, and other times scenes and characters go nowhere. The return of Mulder and Scully is bitter sweet. It is good to see the two characters return, but it is a shame it has to be with a mundane script.

Like many reviewers have written before, the script has some major problems. The story, in many respects, feels incomplete. It does feel like a few more re-writes could have solved many of its structural issues.

I enjoyed the interaction between Mulder and Scully and I felt the movie seemed to work with these two. Their romantic relationship and friendship keep the movie from becoming entirely boring.

And, that’s the main problem. The movie starts out good, but it ends up becoming boring and to a certain degree pointless. The biggest flaw is this: The story isn’t big enough to warrant a motion picture. Now, I can see why they distanced the story away from the Big UFO arc, in order to get newer viewers I suppose, but the story still needs to be special. This story isn’t it.

It feels more like a Special TV movie version of the series. Sadly, this is more apparent when you watch the first X-files movie before this one. The first movie felt and looked like an event, I want to believe doesn’t.

I Want to Believe has its heart in the right place, but it can’t seem to follow through with a fascinating or well-constructed story. Chris Carter, I want to believe, but this just isn’t the movie to do it.

Grade: C-

~I did like the grizzled Mulder that is in hiding in a remote area with pictures plastered all over his room and pencils stuck to the ceiling.

~The subplot with Scully trying to save a dying child is poorly done and shoehorned into the movie. I understand they want to connect Scully’s plight with main storyline of faith, but it just does not fit.

~There are some creepy moments throughout the film. Such as when a ‘reformed’ sex offender gives Scully the strangest look as he walks down the stairs.

~Amanda Peet and Xzibit, both are introduced in this movie as new characters, and they are completely wasted. Xzibit’s character is the non-believer, but we never get a payoff to that character and why he hates Mulder so much. Peet’s character simply gets the crap-end of the stick. There is nothing to payoff her character, nothing…

~There is a two-headed dog in the movie. Now given the nature of the show and the first movie, that’s not too strange. I’d just like to point that out.

~The first movie had a budget of 60 million; this movie was probably around 20-30 million. It shows too.

____________________Scully and the FBI agents discover a mass-grave of Paulie Shore's films buried in the middle of nowhere. Now, they just have to look for where they buried his career.