X-Files: File Under…Wait for DVD
August 4, 2008 by Hollie Overton
Filed under Movies, Uncategorized
I’m not an X-files buff. In fact, I’ve never even seen an episode. For some of you that’s blasphemous. In the series heyday, I was glued to Dawson’s Creek. I’ve tried hard to redeem the errors of my youth but I was the perfect person to see this film. Call me an open vessel, ready to be entertained. I had no preconceived notions. I’m lying. I wanted an alien movie, some cool mystery ala Close Encounters. Not happening. Not an alien to be seen. Instead, you get a mystery that seems suited to Sci-Fi TV show.
After discovering a severed arm, the FBI has no one else to turn to but Scully, a beautifully aged and well-lit Gillian Anderson, who is now a doctor at a children’s hospital. The FBI wants Fox Mulder, the equally ageless David Duchovny, to help with the investigation and will call off the search for him if he convinces him to help. As they begin their hunt for the killer(s), they find their clues given by Crissman, an exiled priest and pedophile played brilliant by Billy Connolly, who claims that God is seeing visions of his crimes. More bodies are discovered and the race to find them energizes Mulder. Without giving anything away, Mulder and Scully of course solve these crimes in a clumsy and unsatisfying way.
Director Chris Carter seems to want to give everything to everyone, which may be the film’s fatal flaw. It’s a thriller with lots of drama, visually stunning, and hints of romance between his two leads, but nothing actually delivers. I knew enough about X-files legacy to know the romance between the two but it was too ambivalent onscreen. There are moments of surprise and suspense and Anderson and Duchovny make a solid transition to film. But it simply misses mark.
I may be the wrong audience for this film. Devoted fans may think it’s the perfect bookend to a beloved series. But for this non-X-filer, it was just a thriller that left me feeling less than thrilled.
Director: Chris Carter
Studio: Crying Box Productions
Release Date:July 25, 2008
Genre: Sci-Fi, Thriller
Runtime: 100 Minutes
