When I previously said I'd watched all of the X Files, I was lying since I still had to catch up with this, the second film released a couple of summers ago.
As the story starts (the film itself starts with a simple but effective intercutting of two time frames) Scully has taken a full time position as a Doctor at a religious hospital and Mulder is still doing what he always did, just not with a government pay cheque and keeping it low key.
Scully is approached by two FBI agents who are dealing with a case involving a missing bureau agent, a case where the best lead is a disgraced priest who claims to be having visions about the kidnapping.
Mulder is reluctantly talked into getting involved but soon finds he is drawn into the case and unable to walk away without getting to the end, just has Scully finds that she no longer can face up to what she calls 'the darkness' anymore.
Thus we have a case and dramatic tension for the two leads to work through. The tension in the relationship between the pair (and does anyone else find it strange they still user each other's surnames?) does feel a little forced at times but in the end rings true. But you do wonder how well people who haven't seen at least a good chunk of the TV show will follow seeing as it touches on Mulder's sister and Scully's lost son amongst other things.
In fact it is the low key moments in the film that interested me the most, those little pieces of character driven storytelling. Where as the case being investigated is never quite as tense as it should be and remains pretty much within 'Without A Trace' territory despite taking a bit of Fringe style serve towards the end.
The main source of X-File weirdness here is Billy Connolly's priest and even that is underplayed throughout with questions over if he really is telling the truth or hiding something more sinister and there is where the film's title comes in. Mulder wants to believe but Scully is no longer sure she can. Again this leads to some interesting character drama rather than finger biting tension of a race against time.
What the film does lack is a sense of being a 'theatrical event', the first film did have it's share of spectacle from exploding buildings to UFOs to expansive vista's but this time out it really does feel like an extended episode and doesn't appear to have had much more budget to play with than it did in it's days as a series.
Having said that if you view it as something of a double length episode than it is I feel a strong one with well realised thematic beats, flashes of the old humour (note the scene when the pair return to the old FBI halls they used to haunt), AD Skinner and a couple of if not plot twists than plot bends along the way.
As for those who complain that it makes no direct reference to the way the series ended I think there is enough there. Scully just wants to have as much a normal life as she can and Mulder has clearly not given up judging by his new office.
And hey I'm sure Reyes and Doggett are still on the case.
1 comment:
"As for those who complain that it makes no direct reference to the way the series ended I think there is enough there. Scully just wants to have as much a normal life as she can and Mulder has clearly not given up judging by his new office."
Unsurprisingly, I disagree. Let's remember that the series ended with a specific date for the impending apocalypse. This is not some small plot thread that can be alluded to and then safely ignored. The entirety of the human race is a few years away from a severe case of extinction, and Mulder's truest ally has just given up. The final episode had Mulder and Scully on the run from an alien-controlled faction of the US government, and they've just given up. John Doggett and Monica Reyes were cast as the pair's spiritual and literal successors (about the only thing the series finale did right), and they've GIVEN UP (well, that or have mysteriously disappeared).
If The X-Files had found itself not being renewed after the X-Files were closed down at the end of Season 1, maybe this would have worked. Maybe "they've split up but Mulder still believes" would fly. After eight more years of "Aliens will kill us! Aliens will kill us! Aliens will kill us and we know exactly when!", it just isn't going to fly.
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