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X-FILES I Want to Believe
Movie Review

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X-FILES I WANT TO BELIEVE
Movie Review
Directed by Chris Carter
Starring David Duchovny, Gillian Anderson
Review by Eli Manning

SYNOPSIS:

Former FBI agents Fox Mulder (David Duchovny), a believer in alien abductions, paranormal phenomena and government conspiracies, and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson), a more pragmatic physician with forensic expertise, team up to find a missing FBI agent by following a trail laid out by a defrocked Catholic priest (Billy Connolly), who's a self-proclaimed psychic.

REVIEW:

Agents Mulder and Scully are back 8 years after their successful show ended and 10 years after their successful first feature film. (still trying to figure out how they got off Antarctica). This time they have moved on and are not agents anymore. But of course they get sucked into an interesting case and go on their disturbing and merry way to solve it.

X-Files I Want To Believe has the theme in it's title. In order to take action, solve problems or just live life, you have to believe in something. The old skit continues as Mulder believes in pretty much anything that's strange and bizarre as Scully is the skeptic of the dynamic pair who are now more than work partners.

But Dr. Scully must believe as well in order for her to figure things out, help her dying young patient recover from a disease that can't be cured and of course get her life partner Mulder out of trouble when he dips a tad too far into the unknown in order to solve a case.

In a commerce point of view, The X-Files I Want to Believe is a film that's a no-brainer. Made for under $30 million dollars, it's a film guaranteed to make it's money back for the studios because there are so many hard core fans. Creator Chris Carter seems to want to start up the franchise ala Star Trek, as he knows that the same fans will come back no matter what while he tries to find a new fanbase in this generation. And the stars are in on it too. Duchovney and Anderson know that these are their career defining roles so they might as well continue on the ride. Another film is already in the works.

But is this a good film? If it's a three part storyline on its TV show, then yes. But this is a feature film and we expect more. There are continuing storylines in this series that Carter seems to never want to answer. So the fans are disappointed that they didn't learn anything knew except that Mulder and Scully are doing different things in their life and career. And for the non-fans of the series who are entering the theater to be entertained, this is just another basic detective story that we've all seen before.

So the bottom line is that is not an exceptional film. A well made film?, Yes. But there's nothing to it.

For Chris Carter and his creative team, this is a nice transition to get them back into the franchise. All we want though is more character development and answers to questions that he keeps putting in front of us but never answering.

You wonder if Carter himself knows the answers to those questions. And that might be the problem. He must understand though that if you keep putting the toy in front of the baby and then keep taking it away from them, then the baby will eventually figure out that they'll never get it and turn away extremely upset. And then tell all his baby friends to not get to go there because it's a con.

2 stars out of 4 for X-Files I Want to Believe