Movie Review: X-Files - I Want to Believe

Well, what can I say? I expected a lot from the return of Mulder and Scully in The X-Files: I Want to Believe. The X-Files was one of my favorite television series of all time, the last X-Files movie (X-Files: Fight the Future) definitely makes my top 20, so I really wanted the new movie to live up to my expectations.

When you compare ‘I Want to Believe’ to the 1998 classic ‘Fight the Future’ and the X-Files television series, as a sequel or a continuation to the X-Files legacy this movie fails. You quickly realize that it doesn’t tie in with what happened in the series or the past movie at all, the cliffhanger left at the end of the final season remains as if it all never happened. However, to his credit, Carter did write I Want to Believe as a stand-alone story similar to the “Monster of the Week” episodes The X-Files became famous for. As a stand-alone story I still feel that the new movie is severely lacking, the story is just not compelling and it offers too few thrills to feed a feature-length adventure.

When compared to ‘Fight the Future’ the movie felt short in duration, and it fell short in not only detail but an interesting plot overall. I don’t want to give away the big mystery but I can guarantee it won’t be the impressive 10 years later return of the X-Files that the advertising hype would lead you to believe. Then again, it is hard to beat government conspiracies and aliens right? So why even try?

The acting in ‘I Want to Believe’ was solid, David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson still look great and they do a good job, but even they seem bored with re-visiting the same old questions that were asked throughout the last movie and the series — Does their quest serve a real purpose? Does Mulder still really believe in the supernatural and does Scully have faith in her work as a healer? Finally, do the two heroes belong together as lovers?

In the end I found myself wanting to believe that there was more to the new X-Files sequel but in reality it took far too long for anything genuinely suspenseful to happen — leaving any would-be audience only wanting more for its money. Did the movie suck? No, however I did have some high expectations for The X-Files: I Want to Believe and they were far from met.