Last night I saw the new X-Files Movie, I Want To Believe, and as a fan of the original series and movie, I had great expectations for this movie. In the normal series and the first movie, Mulder and Scully were assigned by the FBI to investigate the X-Files, or cases that couldn't be explained by normal science. Which usually involved humans with special abilities, government cover-ups of paranormal activity, and extra-terrestrials. However this movie didn't have anything do do with any of that, and the script seemed more politically driven, than to actually answer questions from the fans of the original series, it didn't even seem to be a continuation of the original series.
Plus I think most of the critics just phone this one in with a score of 3.3/5.0, it deserved a 1.0/5.0 and that was probably being generous.
Lets just say I went to see X-Files: I Want To Believe, and I really wanted to believe that the produces would do the original series justice, but the movie left me wanting to leave.
Warning Spoiler Alert If You Continue Reading
What I found most disappointing about this movie was the fact that the writers of the script seemed to start with a political motive of bashing the Catholic Church and started writing a movie around that premise. It only seemed like a forced after thought to make this in to an X-Files movie. Let me run though the facts so you can make your own mind about the movie:
- There is a pedophile psychic priest who is receiving visions of kidnappings.
- Scully is treating a dieing kid in a Catholic hospital with stem cells.
- The one priest who runs the hospital comes off as a heartless guy who cares more about money than helping the dieing kid who has a terminal brain illness.
- The movie has sort of a weak relation to this video that "mysteriously" and suddenly appeared on the internet 3 months ago. (May be too graphic for some of you)
- The bad guy is kidnapping people with AB negative blood.
- To try and find a body for another guy, who's head they are keeping alive similar to the video above.
- Oh yeah and the kidnapper and the guy with no body are gay lovers.
- And the guy who has no body was a victim of the pedophile priest, even though they both look to be of the same age.
- Oh yeah the priest and maybe the guy with no body had cancer, I am really unclear about this.
There was an obvious ax to grind with the Catholic Church in the script, and a plot with holes big enough to drive two MAC trucks and a Boeing 747 through. It was strung together in such a way that to actually think about and make sense of the plot would make your head explode.
The movie also had some really forced and humor, one that I remember seemed to be aimed at the far left conspiracy theorists, where they showed a picture of George W. and did a spooky whistle sound and then panned over to a picture of Herbert Hoover. No idea what they were trying to get across with that, it just went right over my head, but a slight laugh came out none-the-less. By the way that scene the high point of the movie, which was about 10 minutes in.
So if you are interested in seeing a cancer-Russians-gay marriage-stem cells-clergy sex abuse-X-Files episode this movie is for you. But honestly the movie seemed so forced in to the X-Files brand that my uneducated guess is that they couldn't sell the script, about so many topics with "arbitrary plot from yesterdays news" as Wesley Morris from the Boston Globe put it, that they had to try and apply something that would put people in seats at the movie theater.
My recommendation is that you save your 10.00 for the movie ticket and rent the original series on DVD.