The X-Files : Régénération

In the last shot of the theatrical preview for this movie, we see Mulder and Scully turn around to stare at something we assume is very significant. Turns out it's merely a pedestrian reaction shot. And as such, it represents I Want To Believe very well.

This movie gets pretty much everything wrong. First off, it assumes that people watching it have not only seen, but also remember the weak last few seasons of the show. {WHAT FOLLOWS WOULDN'T BE CONSIDERED A SPOILER BY THE FILM'S DIRECTOR, SINCE HE SEEMS TO ASSUME WE ALREADY KNOW THIS} I had no recollection of the two leads ending up romantically involved, which is an incredibly wrong-headed development. Mulder and Scully's platonic partnership was the show's strongest building block. Seeing them in bed together came as a "what the f--k?" moment and felt as wrong as incest. {END MILD, INSIGNIFICANT SPOILER} Then there's the impression that series creator Chris Carter (who wrote and directed this movie), Gillian Anderson, and David Duchovny have all forgotten not only who these characters are, but what the show was about.

The actors call each other by their characters' names, but it feels like a bad impersonation. The biggest problem might be the story, though, which needed to feel like more than just an afterthought, a contrivance to get our duo to investigate spooky goings-on. Speaking of which, the supernatural plays a surprisingly tiny part; apparently, Carter even forgot the genre of his TV show. The main plot feels too mundane (at least until its secrets are revealed at the end, which does provide a few welcome horror thrills). There is an entire pointless subplot devoted to a dilemma faced by Scully at the hospital where she works. The film's subtitle is repeated to eye-rolling effect every time. A recurring character from the show makes an appearance but is given nothing to do. Then Duchovny spouts a few pseudo-profundities, and the whole mess mercifully ends.

Honestly, I thought this was a good film. I'll even go so far as to say a great film. I really think that Chris Carter, David Duchovny, and Gillian Anderson delivered what they had promised to. All along, throughout the post-production and press campaign we've been told that this is a creepy story with Mulder and Scully's relationship at its core. Well, that's what it is ... plain and simple. I really think that all the negativity and people's harsh reviews are from false and hyped up expectations of what this movie is supposed to be. If anything, you should just try to walk into the theatre with an open mind.

But I almost think some people who reviewed this film, saw a different film than I did ...

1. I read a review in which the person said Gillian Anderson's acting was awful. That is false. It is quite the contrary. Gillian Anderson is probably one of the strongest aspects of this movie. Every time she's in a scene, you're captivated.

2. I had read that Mulder and Scully don't show up in the film until 45 minutes into it. False. Scully appears in the 3rd scene - so what? no more than 7 minutes? - and Mulder directly follows.

3. Someone complained about an irrelevant and torturously long scene where Mulder fills up his gas tank. This doesn't happen. He goes to a gas station, gets out of his car, and goes into a store.

4. Lastly, it was rumored that the actors where flubbing up their lines all the time. Okay, even if they did, that wouldn't end up in the final film. Obviously they do multiple takes for a reason. The lines are solid.

This movie is not boring. The surprises are there. It may not be scary in a 'horror film' sort of way where things are jumping out at you every 2 seconds, but it is scary. The acting is amazing. Gillian Anderson on her own is a joy to watch, but when you put her in a scene with David it's either going to break your heart or melt it. The supporting cast won't let you down, and neither will the storyline. It's not paranormal in the sense of freaks and monsters, but religion and God. It's very much in the fashion of "All Things"; seeing the signs and following them. Finally, it is just excellently put together. Whoever edited this film did a phenomenal job! The inter-cutting and juxtaposition was out of this world.

GIVE IT A CHANCE, FOLKS.

I was pleasantly surprised when I saw a trailer for this movie a while back. I always enjoyed the show when I caught it on TV, except when it got really stupid towards the end (Mulder dies, then is buried in a coffin and is then dug up again and is alive--Excuse me?). Given that, I was happy to catch up with Scully and Mulder. It had been six years. Six years. Six years for the shows creators to come up with a script worthy of the legacy of the show. NOT! What a piece of doo-doo. This wouldn't have cut it as a two part episode during season eight. What were they thinking? That show had some of the best writing and directing in the history of television. Part of the joy of watching that show was that it was so much like a movie. Every week you got to watch an incredibly engrossing mini-movie. I felt bad for the actors. They looked slightly embarrassed to be there. Imagine having read the script, knowing it was a dog, and then having to do it and not be able to tell the writer, "You know, Chris, this really sucks..." because he's the big honcho and gave you your big break seventeen years ago. This is supposed to be a movie. Movies are supposed to be BIG. This seemed chintzy. It felt like a rip-off. Six years! If they weren't going to do it right, why did they do it at all? During the movie, my friend, who is not really a big fan of X-Files, leaned over and said, "This is like a remake of "Plan 9 From Outer Space" with an actual budget..." Sadly, I had to agree.

It's not hard to imagine how time flies, when you realize that one of your best loved television series of all time had already ended its run, and you reminisce the times back when one of your weekend nights revolved around sitting in a bunk with your army mates, all glued to what Chris Carter had conjured as adventures for the two best known goggle box FBI agents, Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson). While we always needed to crank up the volume to try and make sense of the murmurs involving shadow governments and secret conspiracies, our favourite episodes almost unanimously were those one-off ones, so called the "monster" episodes.

And it's been 6 years since The End, and 10 years since the first X-Files movie hit the screen. While that movie was intricately linked to the major conspiracy thread, this movie, as the trailer led us to believe, was a one-off monster episode, or so I thought. While it's indeed a one-off episode, it's no monster of an episode in the mould of those in the television series, though it really felt like an extended, stand alone episode which gave us a slightly more in depth look at the dynamics of our beloved duo, especially what happened to them in the last few years they went off the FBI radar. But as the saying goes, you can't put a good man, and a lady, down for too long.

This is a story about obsession. As we all know, Mulder's obsessed with everything X- classifiable, and in the years of absence, here comes an opportunity for a breath of fresh air when Agent Dakota Whitney (Amanda Peet) comes knocking to seek his expertise, as the FBI now has a case on their hands and a psychic, convicted pedophile of a Catholic Father Joseph Crissman (Billy Connolly) who volunteers key information to help in that case. The FBI isn't sure if Father Crissman is a liar, or worse, connected to the crime, and hence Mulder's help is to be their lie-detector. Naturally with religion and her usual cynicism in the mix, Scully is disgusted by the sheer presence of the religious felon, and thus set the stage for some conflict with her beau.

Like an old, quarreling couple who can't seem to give way to each other, their philosophies clash as their interests - Scully battling the hospital system to save her young chronically ill patient - differ, and threaten to pull the couple apart. He thinks that she's not being supportive of his venturing into an X-case even though they're now civilians, while she thinks he's latching onto Father Crissman to use his prowess, if proved true, to find Samantha Fox. Which I thought would probably make an excellent sub plot, but alas the potential was dangled like a carrot in front of us, and then went totally off tangent.

Don't expect any big sets or intricate subplots here, as it really looked like it's done on a shoestring budget, with the look and feel of a typical classic television episode, a two-parter in fact. There are strange aberrations of course, but all these go unexplained, and you know they're just going to be glossed over since everything will be wrapped up by the time the end credits roll. However, there are adequate moments to keep you at the edge of your seat, and some developments do enough to leave your mouth gaping wide open, especially those involving extreme medicine.

David Duchovny does look more comfortable reprising his role as Mulder, but Gillian Anderson, as interviews have revealed, required a lot more time trying to get back into character, and this uneasiness unfortunately shows on screen. The chemistry's still not lacking, but given that their respective characters have aged and grown more comfortable with one another, gone are the tensions between them, though the problems that surface here did try to rekindle some of the opposition they felt during the course of their long running series.

Chris Carter and X-Files regular scribe Frank Spotnitz did incorporate a nice surprise in the movie, so do keep your eyes peeled as you will silently cheer when it happens. But I thought what was a ghastly way to bid farewell, was the little coda toward the end of the credit roll, which somewhat signals the finale of everything, though in a very out of place manner. Anyhow, this X-Files movie episode isn't going to win any new fans over, but for X-philes, I'd bet we're probably just satisfied already with our heroes appearing in celluloid one more time, that no matter how wafer thin the plot is, it's not going to dampen our collective fan spirit.

And to thank our lucky stars that Mark Snow's iconic theme song, didn't get played in the movie under the horrific techno rendition.

The world is a greatly changed place since the heyday of "The X-files." Back in the late 1990's the TV show was at its height and tapping into the shared fears of the day: fear of the unknown, fear of the impending millennium, and fear that something larger than us (the government or alien invaders) was up to no good. Flash forward to the year 2008 and we know all that hubbub about the millennium was for nothing, our government has been up to no good for years, and it's not space invaders we need to worry about but other people terrorizing us. The murky, gloomy, grim style of "The X-Files" is now the norm with feverish and dark films like "There Will Be Blood" and "The Dark Knight" tapping into the mindset of culture today from opposite ends of the film spectrum.

Apparently creator Chris Carter didn't realize his baby was irrelevant now. His only mission should've been to please the faithful. If he wanted to revive his series on film, he had best stick to the labyrinthine alien mythology that still has some die-hard fans buzzing, or at the very least deliver a fun stand-alone monster-of-the-week style flick that would make fans jump in their seats. With "The X-Files: I Want to Believe" he does neither of those things. Instead, he gives us a story where Mulder and Scully come out of hiding to work on a case where the FBI are using a psychic criminal priest to help locate a missing agent and track down a potential serial killer. The plot fits more into the mold of his far less popular companion series "Millennium" than it does to "The X-Files." Apparently Carter wanted to please no one except perhaps himself.

The weirdest thing about the film is that it isn't all that bad. Carter as a director lays on some decent atmosphere (with all the global-warming defying snow and some eerie nighttime shots) and creates some palpable tension as the horrors of the case grow grimmer. The chemistry between Mulder (a lazy but effective David Duchovny) and Scully (an amazingly fully ranged and emotional Gillian Anderson) is still there, and Anderson's performance is especially gripping. Billy Connolly, cast against type, gives an interesting turn as the corrupted priest searching for redemption through his visions that probably would've garnered an Emmy nod had this been a very special two-part TV episode. Also good is Amanda Peet, looking smashing in her smart FBI pantsuits.

Most interesting is the story arc given Dana Scully. I honestly had stopped watching the show after the sixth season, and aside from the mythology storyline that built up to the first film released ten years ago, I recall some of my favorite episodes being the ones where Scully questioned her faith and struggled with reconciling her Catholicism with her scientific approach to the paranormal investigations. This is again explored here, as Scully, always the skeptic, so desperately wants to believe in something. However, it's an odd choice for Carter to focus on this internal human drama when he should be focusing on how to bring fans back into the fold. It would've been an interesting and compelling layer had Carter not been so inept with the rest of the plot.

In the end some fine performances and a moody atmosphere do not add up to a good time. Eventually it becomes an uncomfortable and anachronistic creep-fest that plays like the type of suspense thriller that ruled the roost in the mid-1990's after films like "Silence of the Lambs" and "Seven" made police detection and serial killing popular entertainment. Well, it's 2008, Mr. Carter, and it's time to wake up from your prolonged nightmare that was rendered uninteresting in 2001.