X-Philes won't be able to handle the truth

The makers of the new X-Files movie have done themselves a disservice in coming up with the elongated title, The X-Files: I Want to Believe. Really, it just invites a bunch of bad jokes, which, unfortunately, are justified.

It's easy to imagine how they might go: I want to believe another X-Files movie is necessary, 10 years after the first one came out and six years after the pioneering sci-fi series went off the air. I want to believe it's worth my time and money, even if I wasn't a fervent devotee of the TV show. And I want to believe that Mulder and Scully still have the same chemistry they once did.

Well, David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson do slip comfortably back into the roles that made them superstars in the 1990s, but the movie itself, from director and X-Files series creator Chris Carter, never feels like anything more than an extended episode. It lacks the complexity required to rise to a theatrical level. The big mystery? Just a rehashed urban legend. In deference to the show's many secrets and twists, we'll just say the plot involves a missing persons case, severed body parts and some creepy hunts.

In writing the script, the filmmakers have come up with a stand-alone story, one that does not require expertise in X-Files minutiae. Although they've left nuggets for fans along the way. The title itself is one of them: It's the phrase on a poster that hung in Fox Mulder's office.

These days the former FBI agent spends all his time hiding in his office at home, clipping articles about the same kind of unexplained phenomena he used to investigate. Meanwhile, Dana Scully is a doctor practising at a hospital. But when FBI agents Whitney (Amanda Peet) and Drummy (rapper Alvin 'Xzibit' Joiner) approach her about finding Mulder to help them track down a missing colleague, she gets dragged into the fray, too.

Billy Connolly co-stars as a fallen priest who may be experiencing visions; he and Anderson, as the ever-doubtful Scully, share some intense exchanges. But you immediately know it is of no use when Scully says to Mulder: "I'm done chasing monsters in the dark." And that's one of the few compelling parts of I Want to Believe – the fact that these two are once more searching for answers, together, bickering and bantering along the way.

Duchovny can still whip out a wicked one-liner, and his character's dark humour is crucial. Anderson still brings grace as his straight-laced foil. Their work on The X-Files turns out to have been the best of both actors' careers. Too bad Carter and Co could not come up with a feature-length film that rises to the occasion.



The numbers

$30m: The total production budget for The X-Files: I Want to Believe, as reported on boxofficemojo.com

$11m: The box-office collections for the film in the United States, since its July 25 release, as reported by boxofficemojo.com

68: The number of awards The X-Files TV series won over its nine-year run from 1993 until 2002


The X-Files: I Want to Believe. Stars David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson. rated PG13.