"The X-Files: I Want to Believe" Movie Review

After the non-stop, high-speed entertainment extravaganza that was this summer's movie release schedule, "The X-Files: I Want to Believe" is the equivalent of suddenly finding yourself in a school zone.

While I wasn't a fanatical, catch-every-episode follower, I really enjoyed the series. It was good sci-fi, and I like good sci-fi. Solid characters, fresh takes on classic sci-fi/horror concepts (along with plenty of original concoctions) and sweeping, impenetrable conspiracies... how could anyone say no? Hell, even the first "X-Files" movie, with it's plot tightly bound to the murky miasma that was the show's central alien conspiracy plotline, was entertaining on its own. "I Want to Belive" was not.

The plot follows everybody's favorite (and now former) FBI Agents, Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson), as they are pulled back into the weirdness they've apparently been avoiding in the... however many years since there stopped being "X-Files." Anyway, some sympathetic-to-the-paranormal FBI lady (Amanda Peet) wants Mulder's professional opinion on a supposedly psychic, pedophile priest (Billy Connolly) who claims to be having visions of kidnapped women, including an FBI Agent. There's also a sub-plot involving a young patient Scully is treating in a Catholic hospital and the controversial stem cell treatment she wants to use to cure him.

So, I guess writer/director Chris Carter wanted a plot with some heft to it. It feels like they took the plot from an unfilmed, one-shot "X-Files" episode and forcibly hammered it out to movie length. And if your movie feels over-long at only an hour and 40 minutes... oops, you've screwed up.

As much as I tended to prefer the stand-alone "X-Files" stories to the don't-miss-an-episode-or-your-head-will-implode (and taking notes wouldn't hurt) central plot, I can't help but miss the dark, cryptic, space alien weirdness when confronted with this plodding, vaguely supernatural crime-drama.

According to stuff I read on the Internet, this film was Chris Carter's way of putting out feelers for a third, alien conspiracy finale "X-Files" movie. If that's the case... why the hell didn't he just make that movie?

No Cigarette Smoking Man, no deal.

2 out of 5

-Thad out

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