X-Files the Movie 2

[Thorpe]

Originally Posted by Araxen

I dunno what to make of them...I didn't watch like the last 2-3 seasons so I may need to watch them before I see the movie. I was hoping it was going to be a standalone movie.

Where did you read that it wouldn't be? My understanding has always been for all intents and purposes it will be a stand alone movie.

[Araxen]

Well they mention him trying to find his sister and shit in the clips, so I'm assuming there is something related to the series.

[Lefazz]

Wow they are looking old.

[bobyab]

The movie is coming out this week. For someone who was fanactical about this series at one time, I suprisingly find myself very uninterested.

All the trailers I have seen were... meh... I wanted to see some monster or hints of a badass alien invasion or something. All we get is a psychic bum that bleeds from the eyes. When you resort to using religous crazies, that "see things", as your storyline, you should have your movie making license revoked.

I supppose I will check it out if it scores 75% or higher on RT's, but that looks unlikely.

...BUT atleast X to the Z is in the movie, so I'm sure it will be a'ight.

[Dom Devore]

Originally Posted by bobyab

The movie is coming out this week. For someone who was fanactical about this series at one time, I suprisingly find myself very uninterested.

Same here, but it's mostly due to how long it's been since the show ended. Most X-files fans have moved on by now I imagine. The bad taste that the last season left in my mouth didn't help either.

[Araxen]

Well I'm going to see it as soon as I can this weekend. I can't wait for it to come out!

[Braen]

Nor can I. I have actually missed the X Files on TV. No matter how it ended (went on a few seasons too long) it's still Chris Carter, David Ducovney and Gillian Anderson.

Plus Scully still has it.

[Suineg]

I am excited about it.

I watched some old episodes recently and can't believe I liked the cheesy acting. Just before I knew better.

I am excited more of a nostalgia thing and could care less if it sucks.

[Araxen]

3 1/2 star review by Ebert, it's only 30% at RT.

Ebert Review - Contains spoilers

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

3 1/2 Stars
By Roger Ebert

"The X-Files: I Want to Believe" arrives billed as a "stand-alone" film that requires no familiarity with the famous television series. So it is, leaving us to piece together the plot on our own. And when I say "piece together," trust me, that's exactly what I mean. In an early scene, a human arm turns up, missing its body, and other spare parts are later discovered.

The arm is found in a virtuoso scene showing dozens of FBI agents lined up and marching across a field of frozen snow. They are led by a white-haired, entranced old man who suddenly drops to his knees and cries out that this is the place! And it is.

Now allow me to jump ahead and drag in the former agents Mulder and Scully. Mulder (David Duchovny) has left the FBI under a cloud because of his belief in the paranormal. Scully (Gillian Armstrong) is a top-level surgeon, recruited to bring Scully in from the cold, all his sins forgiven, to help on an urgent case. An agent is missing, and the white-haired man, we learn, is Father Joe (Billy Connolly), a convicted pedophile, who is said to be a psychic.

Scully brings in Mulder, but detests the old priest's crimes and thinks he is a fraud. Mulder, of course, wants to believe Father Joe could help on the case. But hold on one second. Even assuming that Father Joe planted the severed arm himself, you'll have to admit it's astonishing that he can lead agents to its exact resting place in a snow-covered terrain the size of several football fields, with no landmarks. Even before he started weeping blood instead of tears, I believed him. Scully keeps right on insulting him right to his face. She wants not to believe.

Scully is emotionally involved in the case of a young boy who will certainly die if he doesn't have a risky experimental bone marrow treatment. This case, interesting in itself, is irrelevant to the rest of the plot except that it inspires a Google search that offers a fateful clue. Apart from that, what we're faced with is a series of victims, including Agent Dakota Whitney (Amanda Peet) and eventually Mulder himself, who are run off the road by a weirdo with a snowplow.

Who is doing this? And why does Father Joe keep getting psychic signals of barking dogs? And is the missing agent still alive, as he thinks she is? And won't anyone listen to Mulder, who eventually finds himself all alone in the middle of a blizzard, being run off the road, and then approaching a suspicious building complex after losing his cell phone? And how does he deal with a barking dog?

I make it sound a little silly. Well, it is a little silly, but it's also a skillful thriller, giving us just enough cutaways to a sinister laboratory to keep us fascinated. What happens in this laboratory you will have to find out for yourself, but the solution may be more complex than you think if you only watch casually. Hint: Pay close attention to the hands.

What I appreciated about "The X-Files: I Want to Believe" was that it involved actual questions of morality, just as "The Dark Knight" does. It's not simply about good and evil but about choices. Come to think of it, Scully's dying child may be connected to the plot in another way, since it poses the question: Are any means justified to keep a dying person alive?

The movie lacks a single explosion. It has firearms, but nobody is shot. The special effects would have been possible in the era of "Frankenstein." Lots of stunt people were used. I had the sensation of looking at real people in real spaces, not motion-capture in CGI spaces. There was a tangible quality to the film that made the suspense more effective because it involved the physical world.

Of course, it involves a psychic world, too. And the veteran Irish actor Billy Connolly creates a quiet, understated performance as a man who hates himself for his sins, makes no great claims, does not understand his psychic powers, is only trying to help. He wants to believe he can be forgiven. As for Duchovny and Anderson, these roles are their own. It's like they're in repertory. They still love each other, and still believe they would never work as a couple.

Or should I say they want to believe?

The movie is insidious. It involves evil on not one level but two. The evildoers, it must be said, are singularly inept; they receive bills for medical supplies under their own names, and surely there must be more efficient ways to abduct victims and purchase animal tranquilizers. But what they're up to is so creepy, and the snow-covered Virginia landscapes so haunting, and the wrong-headedness of Scully so frustrating, and the FBI bureaucracy so stupid, and Mulder so brave, that the movie works like thrillers used to work, before they were required to contain villains the size of buildings.

[Chrisb3]

Originally Posted by Araxen

The veteran Irish actor Billy Connolly.

Retarded reviewer. He is a scottish comedian.

[Nakilos]

Because comedians never have a film career.

Billy Connolly - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[Braen]

I think the Irish/Scottish thing is more the point he is making.

[Chrisb3]

Originally Posted by Nakilos

Because comedians never have a film career.

Billy Connolly - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Obviously he has a fucking film career since we are talking about an movie in this thread!? It isn't what he is famous for here though.

I'll rephrase: He is Scottish. Better?

[Burkex]

From what I have seen so far it has been getting good reviews, so I will see it fri afternoon after work since I am a long time X-Files fan. I never missed an episode until it started sucking (When Fox Mulder left and Special Agent Dogshitt replaced him).

PS: I hope some of the old classic x-files chars are in this movie like the Cigarette Smoking Man, X, Krycek, The Bounty Hunter, and of course The Lone Gunmen. Thes characters were all legendary TV characters imo, they made the show.

[Lefazz]

Originally Posted by Burkex

From what I have seen so far it has been getting good reviews

What are you talking about? It's getting hammered.

The Truth Is Kind Of A Snore!! Alexandra DuPont Calls X-FILES 2 A Dull, Low-Budget, Underwhelming Rush Job!! -- Ain't It Cool News: The best in movie, TV, DVD, and comic book news.
The X-Files: I Want to Believe Movie Reviews, Pictures - Rotten Tomatoes

I love the X-Files, but this movie looks like it was thrown out there with little thought put into it.