Don't expect awards for "X-Files: I Want to Believe." This extremely disappointing thriller lacks the sense of urgency and the satisfying, yet open-ended, conclusions that made the TV show a hit.
After leaving the FBI, Dr. Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) is working at a hospital when FBI agents approach her to locate her former partner, disgraced agent Fox Mulder (David Duchovny). The FBI wants Mulder's help to locate a missing agent, the partner of agent Dakota Whitney (Amanda Peet). Joseph Crissman (Billy Connolly), a convicted pedophile priest, claims to receive visions of the missing agent, and Whitney needs Mulder's expertise in investigating the paranormal to verify the priest's visions.
The film is an odd choice for a summer blockbuster. Set in the middle of winter, its tone is generally grim as it questions the motives and morality of its characters. Without any of the luscious scenery or special effects that characterize this season's films, the movie sets itself apart as a film that relies on thought rather than spectacle.
Scully and Mulder reprise their roles as the skeptic and the believer, but their arguments about blind faith and other issues of belief may seem a bit too familiar to fans of the series. These arguments contain catchphrases that are repeated so often they make the film feel as if it were stagnating instead of moving toward a conclusion. The phrase "the darkness" becomes overused, and every dispute seems to culminate in the question of whether the characters involved "want to believe."
The dialogue may be stiff, but the acting does not suffer. Anderson and Duchovny both perform effortlessly as if they had never left the original show. Meanwhile, Connolly manages to balance the appearance of sincerity and deviousness to make his character a perpetual mystery.
"X-Files" does do a good job in weaving together different story lines, making allowances for the time that has passed between the end of the series and this new film.
However, one instance of trying to integrate too many story lines fails. The late arrival of FBI assistant director Walter Skinner, a series regular played by Mitch Pileggi, seems tacked on and will lose audience members new to the "X-Files."
The final revelation behind the film's mystery isn't as far-reaching or profound as you'd like. The conclusion may be meant as a test of faith, but it ends up being a test of patience. To provide a definite answer to the film's mystery would be to kill the sense of infinite possibility that the series originally thrived on.
"X-Files: I Want To Believe" will probably be best enjoyed by die-hard fans wishing to know what happened to the series' main characters, but it generally fails where the series once excelled. With so much potential and so little success, you might want to believe that the new "X-Files" film was better than it was.
