Cinema Misfits

An expanse of flat, snow-covered land bisected by a two lane highway.  A car has veered off the road and plowed into the snow.  The police inspect the area, looking for clues that might explain the accident.

This is either (a) a scene from early in Fargo or (b) toward the end of X-Files: I Want to believe.  If you chose (a) and (b), you’re correct!  The two films are remarkably similar, aside from small differences like Fargo is funny and has surprising, interesting characters, while X-Files: I Want to Believe is deadly serious, with a predictable take on its established cast.  Both films also have lots of snow.  And they feature female characters in law enforcement.  And there’s lots of snow…in both films.

Actually, that’s pretty much where the similarities end.

Surprising absence of aliens in X-Files movie.

In any case, forget about Fargo.  X-Files: I Want to Believe doesn’t even hat that much in common with X-Files: The TV Series or X-Files: The Previous Movie.  If you’re expecting government cover-ups, ETs, implants, and alien hybrids–you know, X-Files kind of stuff–this might not be the movie for you.

To be fair, the TV series featured two kinds of stories: mythology and stand-alone.  The ongoing mythology stories involved malevolent aliens and the stand-alones could be about anything from bionic werewolves to government AI programs run amuck.  It’s disappointing the alien invasion story isn’t being wrapped up or even advanced, but with karmic-vampires or a sentient virus only a clue or unexpected revelation away, the absence of any kind of extraterrestrial threat can be forgiven.

A cool creature you won't be seeing in X-Files movie.

What can’t be forgiven is the ridiculous beard Mulder has for the first third of the film.  He doesn’t look rugged or crazed or even unkept.  He just looks idiotic.  Then there’s the fright wig on Billy Collins.  And Scully–sure she looks fine, I’m not saying she doesn’t–but she is noticeably thinner than the last time we saw her, and, well, not so much like the Scully from the TV series anymore.  To be honest, it’s a relief when Skinner shows up late in the film and he’s not sporting a toupe or a mustache.

But goofy looking characters are only the tip of the iceberg as far as this film’s problems go, and they’d all be a lot easier to put up with if the payoff was some kind of trans-dimensional being or even a sasquatch, for Chrissakes.  Hell, an impotent incubus would do.  But when all is said and done, what the menace turns out to be is…a clairvoyant, pedafile priest?  In a story about an organ harvesting scheme?  Which ultimately turns out to be a lame-ass Frankenstein story?

Really?

Another cool creature you won't see in X-Files movie.

And let’s be clear: we’re not talking Boris Karloff or even Christopher Lee Frankenstein.  X-Files: I Want to Believe is a lot closer to something like The Brain That Wouldn’t Die.  The big difference is, Brain has a crazy but entertaining concept at its center: a hen-pecked husband’s worst nightmare, his wife reduced to a hectoring, demanding head screaming orders at him from a pan on a table.  X-Files, on the other hand, has a couple of thugs attempting to make some money off of head transplants.

As lame and  half-baked as the story is, the lame, half-baked dialogue is even worse.    A good portion of what Scully has to say consists of some variation of the following:

“This isn’t my life anymore.”

“I don’t work with Fox Mulder anymore.”

This isn’t my job anymore.”

“Mulder, it’s over”

Sadly, you won't be seeing anything even this cool in the X-Files movie.

At some point, this starts to sound less like dialogue from a character and more like the mantra of a filmmaker who no longer wants to have anything to do with his creation.  If, however, Chris Carter  still harbors hopes of relaunching the original show or possibly a series of  TV movies and is only marking time with this latest effort until he can make that happen, then someone should take him aside and have a little talk .

To paraphrase Scully, “Carter, it’s over.”

And no, I don’t want to believe.