

Film review by Kevin Patterson

THE X-FILES
Rating: ***1/2 (out of four)
PG-13, 1998
Director: Rob Bowman
Screenplay: Chris Carter
Story: Chris Carter & Frank Spotnitz
Producers: Chris Carter & Daniel Sackheim
Starring Cast: David Duchovny, Gillian Anderson, Martin Landau, William B.
Davis, John Neville.

Having been an avowed X-Phile for several years, I wasn't sure how best to
approach the task of reviewing this X-FILES feature film. I had thought
that I should try to write the review as objectively as possible and
distance myself from my fandom, but I realized that this would probably be
a dubious endeavor on my part, to say the least. And since most of the
other reviews I've read have been written by those who do not watch the
show, I've decided to throw objectivity to the wind and offer the
perspective of an admitted die-hard fan.

Whether you watch the show or not, you probably know that it involves the
efforts of FBI Agents Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian
Anderson) to investigate paranormal phenomena. Over the show's five
seasons, this assignment has led them into the increasingly dangerous
depths of an international government conspiracy to conceal the truth about
the existence of alien life. As the film begins, the X-Files have been
closed and Mulder and Scully have been given a routine assignment
investigating a bomb threat. Unfortunately, the assignment doesn't turn out
to be quite so routine: the agents barely escape with their lives as the
bomb levels a building in what appears to be a cover-up of several bizarre
deaths in Northern Texas. Before long, the eccentric Dr. Alvin Kurtzweil
(Martin Landau) contacts Mulder, claiming to have inside information which
indicates that the bomb may have been the doing of the sinister
conspirators that have frustrated Mulder and Scully for so long.

THE X-FILES has been promoted as an action movie, but it's really more of a
hi-tech political thriller with a science fiction backdrop. There are
several big action set pieces, particularly a riveting sequence towards the
end in Antarctica, but like the TV series, this movie is more about
intrigue, paranoia, and searching for the truth than chases and explosions.
It sets up the mystery effectively in the first half hour or so,
alternating back and forth between the two agents' situation and the
efforts of a shady government organization to conceal the existence of a
seemingly alien-originated virus. While Mulder and Scully try to gather
evidence of the mysterious circumstances surrounding the initial bombing,
the conspirators, among them the Cigarette-Smoking Man (William B. Davis),
the Well-Manicured Man (John Neville), and a German named Strughold (Armin
Mueller-Stahl), scramble to protect their long-held plans for the future of
the planet.

Since part of the fun of political thrillers in general and of the ongoing
storyline of the "X-Files" TV series is following the plot developments, I
won't give away any more actual story elements. I can say, however, that
the move to the big screen does seem worthwhile: the two agents'
investigations have a much larger scope than they previously have, and the
movie also injects a new dose of horror into the alien conspiracy thread.
The ending, as one might expect, is somewhat open-ended: series creator
Chris Carter, who wrote the screenplay, provides an effective temporary
resolution while leaving the door open for further mysteries in coming TV
episodes. And yes, fellow X-Philes, we do in fact get some of the
long-awaited answers about the elusive conspiracy.

As is the case in the show, the story is given an extra little spark by the
Mulder and Scully characters, who have an interesting believer/skeptic
dynamic (though Scully's skepticism is understandably waning at this point
in the story) and who must have one of the most enigmatic relationships in
Hollywood history. They clearly care for each other very deeply and depend
on one another for support, yet they are almost obsessively dedicated to
their work (particularly Mulder, who believes his sister was abducted by
aliens) and are careful to avoid any overtly romantic gestures. This film
finds them addressing what their quest for the truth means to them and what
they mean to each other more openly than they ever have on the TV show,
while managing to preserve some of the enigma and ultimately revitalizing
the two characters. I especially liked the scenes in which each of them
worries that he or she is somehow weighing down the other, that the quest
has become too personal and their work too marginal to be worthwhile. It's
interesting to see that they're thoughtful enough to consider this, even
though Carter's screenplay rightly posits that their worries are unfounded:
whether they realize it or not, Mulder and Scully are true crusaders for
justice.

The missteps in THE X-FILES are for the most part minor and scattered. The
screenplay gets a little overdramatic at times, such as when a government
agent worries that the "impossible scenario we never had a plan for" is now
developing, or when the two agents shout "Mulder!" and "Scully!" almost a
dozen times during a chase scene. Director Rob Bowman executes most of the
action sequences perfectly, but he cuts from scene to scene extremely
quickly in a few places; in one scene, for example, Mulder thinks he is
being followed and ducks around a corner, and in the very next shot he's
walking in his apartment door. There are also a few plot holes, most
notably the fact that the conspirators don't seem to guard their secrets
too carefully (though the TV series has gotten away with this conceit for a
long time as well).

The screenplay does manage to bring new viewers up to speed pretty quickly
without indulging in overly awkward exposition: it should work as an
entertaining, intelligent thriller even for those who haven't followed the
show. The main disadvantage for non-X-Philes, I think, is that they might
not have quite the same sense of the extent of the conspiracy and the
ordeal that Mulder and Scully have endured in trying to expose it; for
these viewers, a *** rating might be more appropriate. If you really want
an objective analysis, however, I'd have to advise you to go read some
other review. From my own hopelessly biased perspective, I'd say that it's
about as good as I had hoped: it's essential to the "X-Files" storyline,
it's worth seeing on the big screen, the characters make some important
decisions, and yet enough of the mystery is preserved. The truth is still
out there, and it's just as intriguing as ever.

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