Subject: Review: X Files (1998)

From: [email-masked] (p-m agapow)
Date: 30 Jul 1998 23:12:32 GMT

[film] "The X Files"
(A Postview, copyright 1998 P-M Agapow)

This is how it is: everyone's favourite FBI agents are once again down 
on their luck, the eponymous files having been closed.  But Mulder 
(David Duchovny) is contacted by an old friend of his father (Martin 
Landau) who explains that he is aware of a high level conspiracy to 
unleash a plague on mankind.  Knowing this will at the very least 
explain the final season of "Space 1999", Mulder cons Scully (Gillian 
Anderson) into donning an awesome pair of heels and rekindling their 
unresolved sexual tension.  Equipped with their trusty torchs, mobile 
phones and clothes in every imaginable shade of black, our 
conspiratorial duo investigate a bomb blast and a mysterious 
excavation site.  It's not long before Scully is conveniently taken 
prisoner and Mulder has to trudge through snow to save her.

There's a lot to admire about "The X Files" as a TV show.  It keyed 
into a previous unmined vein of interest in conspiracy and paranoia, 
paid a long overdue visit to the horror genre, managed to laugh at 
itself while telling some fun and well-directed stories.  It's a very 
likeable show.  This may explain why after seeing the movie there is 
this vague feeling of guilt that you didn't like it more.

The beginning is admirable, drawing you in with a great surtitle for a 
hookline: "North Texas - 35000 BC".  After this creepy opening 
sequence, we see the two discredited agents working a case in Dallas 
that features a great explosion and the movie's sole point of parody 
(which revolves around Mulder's wooden expression).  Things then get 
very busy with secret meetings, internal agency hearings and help 
crawling out of the woodpile at every turn.  To be fair, it's only 
near the end that you realise that you are just watching a two hour 
episode of the TV show.

Is that so bad?  Movie and TV can be very different experiences, if 
only due to length.  "The X Files" shows a few scars gained in the 
move.  The soundtrack blairs stridently in too many scenes.  A 
rollcall of characters parade past the screen and then disappear.  The 
malevolent Cancer Man gets no chance to work his evil and those 
paragons of geekdom, the Lone Gunmen, are on screen for a full 20 
seconds.  But worst of all, over a two hour period the movie is 
sufficiently drawn-out to let you dwell on plot intricacies.  (Plot 
intricacies and Scully's magnificent pumps.  Excuse me.)  At the end 
of the day, the plot makes little sense.  In a conspiracy the viewer 
should be convinced that while motives may be unknown, the action is 
in some light be consistent and plausible.  But "The X Files" slowly 
but surely breaches this barrier.  The unseen conspiracy cannot make 
sense.  The actions of some characters seems to come out of a vacuum.  
And at the end of the movie, we are back to square one - the X Files 
are re-opened and conspirators and whistleblowers are at work again, 
with no ground gained or lost.

Hardcore X-philes will race off to see the movie immediately and 
probably get a decent bang-for-buck out of it.  More casual fans will 
still enjoy it but can proceed more leisurely, maybe waiting for video 
(which I predict will not be long).  Those who have never seen "The X 
Files" will have trouble understanding any of this.  Conversely, the 
hoopla over having to know the last few episodes to understand the 
movie is severely overstated - a nodding acquaintance with the main 
characters and issues is all that is necessary.  [**/ok] and unmarked 
helicopters on the Sid and Nancy scale.

"The X Files"
Released 1998.
Directed by Rob Bowman.
Written by Chris Carter and Frank Spotniz.
Music by Mike Oldfield and Mark Snow.
Starring David Duchovny, Gillian Anderson, Martin Landau, Armin Mueller-Stahl,
	Blythe Danner, William B. Davis, Mitch Pileggi.
	
--
Paul-Michael Agapow ([email-masked])
Postviews SF/F reviews & mailing-list at www.cs.latrobe.edu.au/~agapow/Postviews