Subject: Review: The X-Files (1998)

From: "Rick Ferguson" <[email-masked]>
Date: 1 Jul 1998 04:29:12 GMT

THE X FILES: FIGHT THE FUTURE

Starring David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson

Written by Chris Carter and Frank Spotnitz

Directed by Rob Bowman

Let me preface this review by stating up front that I am not a fan of 
THE X FILES. Not that I have anything against the show - it's just 
that I watch so many movies that if I watched TV too, I'd really have 
no life. I am wired into pop culture enough to know the basics: about 
abducted sisters and black ooze and a cigarette-smoking villain who may 
be Mulder's father. I know that the show has grown more popular every 
year it's been on, making it the first serious rival to the 
uber-fandom of STAR TREK that has consumed the lives of so many 
otherwise rational adults. A movie version of this phenomenon was 
perhaps inevitable, but its success was by no means guaranteed. Series 
creator Chris Carter and director Rob Bowman had, really, a daunting 
task before them: to make a feature film that would satisfy their core 
constituents, entertain newbies and make enough money to avoid 
embarrassing themselves. Did they succeed? From this outsider's 
perspective, I'd say they did. THE X FILES: FIGHT THE FUTURE is an 
entertaining piece of fiction, and the first truly original release of 
this otherwise lackluster summer movie season.

If you're a fan of the series, you will no doubt have already seen the 
picture by the time you read this review. On the off chance that 
you're reading this from your hospital bed or on a cruise ship, 
however, I'll refrain from spoilers. Suffice it to say that the plot 
stems from events which occurred in the last couple of episodes of the 
series, events which involve a "black oil" which is really the vanguard 
of an extraterrestrial viral invasion of Earth. The film opens in Texas 
in 3500 B.C., in which two primitive travelers stumble upon the virus in 
an icy cave. This is some virus: it mutates rapidly into a deadly 
intelligent humanoid life form which seems to exist solely to disembowel 
unsuspecting humans.

We fast-forward to the present day, when a Texas youth falls into the 
same cave and releases the same virus. This event leads us to Dallas, 
where we find FBI agents Mulder (David Duchovny) and Scully (Gillian 
Anderson) relieved of their X-Files duties and reassigned to an 
anti-terrorism unit. The death of the infected boy leads directly to the 
destruction of the Dallas Federal building, which in turn leads Mulder 
and Scully back into the massive alien-invasion cover-up helmed by the 
mysterious Well-Manicured Man (John Neville) and the 
even-more-mysterious Cigarette-Smoking Man (William B. Davis). Before 
they know it our two intrepid agents are back in the familiar territory 
of illicit autopsies, nervous informants, unmarked black helicopters, 
secret government installations and sublimated sexual energy. It looked 
to me like you X-philes out there had everything your paranoid hearts 
could desire.

Like the STAR TREK movies, THE X FILES works in a cinematic shorthand of 
sorts, introducing its main characters without the typically-required 
exposition because they already have a long history together. This 
history resulted in a lot of enthusiasm in the friendly audience with 
which I saw the film: they cheered Mulder when he appeared, cheered 
loudly for Scully when she started barking orders at the security guards 
in the Federal Building, and laughed at all the in-jokes. They didn't 
seem to mind that the plot is all a lot of hokum. There are a couple of 
tense and clever set-pieces, including a brilliant one involving a 
monstrous swarm of bees and a field of corn (don't ask). But the 
picture was hurt by the lack of a true villain and the need to keep 
things open-ended enough to avoid interfering with the on-going series. 
Carter and company can't really wrap things up when there's a new 
season's worth of skullduggery to consider.

But the plot is beside the point. What I learned from watching this 
picture is that the alien conspiracy is really just window dressing for 
the true key to THE X FILES' success: the central love story. Mulder 
and Scully are passionately in love with each other. To succumb to their 
feelings would be to destroy their working relationship and thus imperil 
the fate of the Earth; it is therefore our treat to watch them 
physically strain against the chains wrapped around their libidos. These 
two make Sam and Diane look like pikers. Duchovny and Anderson, five 
year series veterans both, are in full command of this knowledge and are 
thus able to inject real emotion into their scenes together. If you 
watch closely, you'll realize that the picture is even structured like 
a traditional love story. It doesn't matter whether your setting is 
the Civil War, the Bolshevik Revolution, a doomed ocean liner or a vast 
government conspiracy - the point is to keep the lovers apart as long 
as possible, because that's where the drama comes from.

So THE X FILES seems to satisfy old fans and create new ones - at least 
on the night I saw it. It offers a refreshing sci-fi vision that stands 
head and shoulders above all the Alien clones and refried INDEPENDENCE 
DAY-style claptrap splattered on the movie screens this decade. It also 
has a future as a franchise, if its creators can maintain this level of 
quality. Not only did it demonstrate exactly what drives the show's 
success, but it made me a believer. I just might have to start 
scheduling time on Sunday nights.

GRADE: B+

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