The X-Files: I Want to Believe
Directed by: Chris Carter
Starring: David Duchovny, Gillian Anderson, Amanda Peet, Billy Connolly
Rated: PG-13 for violent and disturbing content and thematic material.
Unlike the last “X-Files” movie (“The X-Files: Fight the Future” in 1998), “The X-Files: I Want to Believe” is largely a stand-alone. There are no government conspiracies or aliens. This is a quiet, thoughtful film about the characters and their nature — for the most part, at least. It wouldn’t be “The X-Files” if we didn’t have a least few weird things, like body parts frozen in a lake, a psychic crying tears of blood, and a mysterious medical procedure or two.
Your humble reviewer was quite a fan of the show back in the day, but gave up watching when FBI Agents Mulder and Scully hooked up and had a (mysteriously super powered!) baby. There are some references in the new film to things from the later seasons, but nothing critical to understanding the story at hand, so even those who barely remember what the show was originally about should be able to stay afloat.
The story picks up some years after the show ended. Scully (Gillian Anderson) is now a doctor at a hospital, and deeply engaged in one of her cases, a boy with a terminal brain disease. She refuses to give up on him, in spite of the hospital board’s belief that there’s nothing to be done. Mulder (David Duchovny) is in hiding, which apparently consists of living in a house not far from Scully’s with no security. The FBI is still unhappy with him for things he did before leaving the show.
However, an FBI agent has gone missing and a local man claims he is having psychic visions about her, so the FBI decides to forgive all of Mulder’s past indiscretions and bring him in to help on the case. He agrees, on the condition that Scully come with him. She’s reluctant, given the amount of time she’s putting in on her work with the boy at the hospital, but ultimately agrees.
What follows is a strange, meandering investigation of the self-proclaimed psychic (who looks to have his own motivations for pretending to have visions) and the vanished agent, who turns out to be just the tip of the proverbial iceberg Scully’s work at the hospital continues, and the story of her attempts to get the hospital and the boy’s parents to agree to an experimental treatment seem completely unrelated to the investigation storyline. However, it isn’t unrelated to the film’s themes, which are choices and belief (and perhaps, the choice to believe).
Anderson and Duchovny have a great deal of ease together onscreen and seem to fall right back into the characters without any preamble. They’re still Mulder and Scully, even if they’re not in the FBI or facing down treacherous government conspirators. The supporting cast, particularly Billy Connolly as the possibly-psychic fellow, do solid jobs as well.
“The X-Files: I Want To Believe” has a noticeably different feel to it than the television show did, and it’s hard to say whether the fans will like it or not. Moviegoers looking for a thoughtful thriller that’s as much about characters as it is about the mystery will be in luck, but folks in search of aliens, explosions, and conspiracy theories will be disappointed.