The X-Files: I Want To Believe is a 2008 20th Century Fox release written by Frank Spotnitz and Chris Carter and directed by Chris Carter, your typical X-Files show runners and creators back again. The film stars David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson as their respective Mulder and Scully characters, and also stars Billy Connolly, Xzibit, Amanda Peet, and Mitch Pileggi reprising his role as Skinner. This movie is a stand-alone film tied into the X-Files universe, meaning it has the core group of characters back investigating a case together again, kind of, but it doesn’t tie into the overarching mythology that was explored in the TV show years before this movie’s release. Now, I’m a huge X-Files fan, it has grown into being one of my favorite television shows of all time in the past few years and I’ve digested the extensive show’s seasons rather easily and with a smile on my face most the time. It’s horror, it’s sci-fi, it’s police investigation, and it’s all tied up together in a well-done bow. I want to do some more content over my favorite TV shows eventually and the X-Files will definitely be included in that if and when I do. I will say though, not that either of the X-Files movies are bad, I don’t think they’re bad, but I would personally say that a lot of the episodes are thoroughly better concepts and content than what is delivered in the 2 movies we did get from the series. This film is a stand-alone like many of the best episodes of the television show, meaning that it’s an entirely stand-alone story and doesn’t tie into the overall mythology that was explored season to season on the show. This was a Chris Carter decision in an attempt to reignite the X-Files fandom 6 years after the show went off air and in hopes to attract new fans to the series. I’m sure it turned some heads and got some people interested in the show that hadn’t viewed it before, but not to the extent that I bet they had hoped and that’s partially to do with the competition in theaters when this movie was released. Going up against major summer blockbusters in 2008 like The Dark Knight, Step Brothers, and Mamma Mia made it hard for this movie to find its own footing and compete for the casual movie goers.
I’d also argue though that this movie would have done better if the overall story was just better. Not that it was bad, this is a very watchable film if nothing else, but being a fan and knowing what the X-Files is capable of it didn’t feel like they really reached for the stars or pulled out the big boy concepts for this, it just didn’t feel X-Files enough! I’ve seen much better concepts and plot lines in some of the stand-alone episodes than this, and like I said had this just been a horror/police investigation movie then this would have been fine, but tying the X-Files name to it raised the hopes up too high for existing fans and didn’t take enough chances to really captivate new audience members. The general story follows a disgraced Mulder now holed up in hiding from the FBI who’s been looking for him and Scully who’s now a doctor at a Catholic children’s hospital as they’re sought out by current FBI agents to help on a missing agent’s case because of their expertise in the X-Files. They spend their time in the snowy Virginias as they attempt to hunt down a modern-day Russian Dr. Frankenstein whose team has been kidnapping people and illegally harvesting organs in an operation to attempt to bring others back to life. Like I said, that’s a decent enough concept and could have even been neat if we spent more time following the leads and exploring the depths of this case, but a lot of this movie also spends time on things I didn’t really find that intriguing. Like Scully having her faith tested once again as she tries experimental medical tactics in an attempt to save a sick young boy’s life, that’s fine storytelling but it’s not X-Files and not what I care to spend time on in an X-Files movie that had been anticipated since the series ended 6 years earlier! There were also some questionable choices made with Billy Connolly’s character in the film as well that I noticed many people calling out when I looked up details about this movie after my viewing. He was a disgraced priest who was a convicted pedophile that saw visions of the kidnappings involved in this case and helped the FBI on the search for the people committing them, people saw this movie as sort of pedophile apologizing through the dialogue exchanged between him and Scully in a certain scene in the film and the positive impact he played in helping track down the evil. I can definitely understand the criticism in that aspect, but I didn’t have a problem with it in the same way a lot of people did. They didn’t erase the fact that he was a sick man with sick tendencies, but he was also on a path of forgiveness with God and exiling himself from society to avoid temptation and had real connections to people involved in the case that caused his visions. He wasn’t just a random pedophile with visions thankfully because that would have even been much worse.
I don’t have much more to say about this movie without giving up more than I maybe already have. I know it sounds like I did not like this movie, but I wouldn’t go that far. This movie was fine, and I’ll probably watch it again I’m sure, but that’s because I’m already an X-Files fan. I just think this movie was overall disappointing compared to what it could have been, and I can imagine the outrage felt by longtime fans of the series who were waiting and anticipating this film’s release. You don’t want to tie things into the mythology in an attempt to create new fans and buzz over the series? That’s fine, that’s awesome, but then give us something a little more than this to sink our teeth into. I think it’s mainly frustrating because I know Carter, Spotnitz, and the team are capable of so much more because I saw it time and time again in their ‘monster of the week’ episodes of the series that didn’t tie into the mythology at all but were still great. If I could, I’d recommend people to watch the series much before I’d recommend they watch this movie if they were interested in the X-Files as a whole. It’s 11 seasons in all and a lot/almost too much to digest for some people understandably, but if you’re into horror/sci-fi you won’t find a television show even still that does it much better than they did it throughout their run. Some episodes are obviously much better than others and that in itself is subjective, but they explore so many different concepts throughout the run that there’s almost guaranteed to be something for everyone, and I would argue that plenty of them are more enthralling than what they delivered to us in ‘I Want To Believe’.
