Some of my fondest memories of middle school would be staying up late on certain nights when FX and maybe SciFi also played reruns of The X Files, I rarely missed one of these if I could despite the fact that they didn’t play in order so the mythology episodes never made complete sense to me until years later when I actually could sit down and watch the series from the beginning as doing so digitally became easier in the later 2000s. It remains a television series I love, even as the evolution of UFO and conspiracy theory culture has shifted towards right-wing grifters and zealots that actually significantly influence US public policy to some degree and thus a LOT less kooky and fun in practice than the early internet era the X Files represented. So it should be no surprise that despite not having a great love of it when it first came out, when I saw a beat up old Hollywood Video rental of The X Files: I Want to Believe on DVD last year I couldn’t resist picking it up for a dollar or so even if I didn’t know when I’d eventually get to it with being pretty disappointed when it first came out.
The best point of comparison for this film isn’t the first X Files film, which was deeply mythology-heavy, but rather the Monster of the Week episodes that focused on specific one-off cases of an often supernatural bent. As such, judging the actual “case” it is of a B+ MOTW episode. It’s meandering and takes too long to get to the reveal of what is actually happening with the villains, and the climax is really kind of disappointing because of how rushed it feels and the unresolved questions it leaves. It also doesn’t often feel like The X Files as it is much darker than most episodes, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, and brooding and a little gory for PG-13 and feels closer in tone to its sort of sister series in Millenium which I have been watching for the first time recently (and enjoying, but that’s for another post, maybe). At the same time, its few attempts at humor (particularly a musical cue gag on a shot of George W. Bush’s portrait and some pedophile jokes) fall unusually flat for the series and don’t match the tone of the rest of the film. I also wish they had utilized Skinner much more, he’s such an important part of the soul of the series and gets so little screen time here. They raise some “can pedophiles be redeemed?” questions that are generally as unnecessary as making the main villain gay for some reason.
Overall though? I liked it a lot more than I remember when I first saw it in my late teens. Nothing has more fully and thoughtfully and even heartbreakingly explored the nature of the connection between Mulder and Scully, the love and more important need for each other to complete their missing parts but also how what drives them is what makes it impossible for them to ever be truly happy with one another. So much of this movie is just a character driven-drama about the nature of faith and belief and morality and connection, and the two stars do a fantastic job, some of the best intimate work either actor has ever done. Billy Connolly also is excellent as a pedophile priest, 37 counts!, with physic visions of abducted woman who goes to the FBI to try and help find a missing agent even if sometimes by sheer virtue of being Billy Connolly the character comes off as more likable than he has any right to. Its procedural looseness as stated above can be a detriment, but it also allows the film, especially in this extended edition, room to breathe with its characters through a series of small, subtle interactions not typically seen in a decent budget, PG-13 IP project.
It also looks absolutely beautiful. They apparently specifically wrote this film to play to strengths of British Columbia where so much of the original series before the final seasons of the original run was shot, and the snow-banked atmosphere with constant flurries in the air and tasteful but deeply effective lighting choices throughout really just looks so nice and gives the film a gorgeously barren, hopeless feel that fits very much with the themes. It also has a lot of flashes of horror from copious body parts to its pure B-movie mad science in the climax, that are super effective if too fleeting. Even with having the cinematographer of most of the post-movie seasons of The X Files to help along and being a huge part in developing the look of the original series as showrunner, it is still impressive that Chris Carter never even directed a single episode of one of TV series and still creates such a good looking film in his first try.
I liked this movie so much more the second time viewing, technically first for this cut though, and really think that critics at the time other than a few like Ebert and the still-good AV Club had their heads up their asses on this one. Is it a perfect? No. Is it a great representation of what the series brings to the table? Not totally. If viewed at a two-part Monster of the Week episode of the series, would it be one of the most memorable and emotional in the series? Absolutely.
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