John's Movie Musings

When was the last time you saw an episode of The X-Files? The shark-jumping movie came out ten years ago and I stopped watching the show long before then. So now you know how I went into the latest X-Files flick.

Because it's been long enough for Scully and Mulder to have been replaced with Spears and Lohan in our collective memories, The X-Files: I Want to Believe has a stand-alone plot, having nothing at all to do with the series. I guess Hollywood decided to give the aliens to Indiana Jones this year. What? Too soon?

Unfortunately, the movie both succeeds and fails because it stands alone. Since I can barely remember what Scully and Mulder look like, I can watch this without being an X-phile. That's a good thing. It probaby would have helped if I had remembered why Mulder's sister was so important, so if you do, you'll catch a few more things than I did.

The bad part is that the plot does not belong in the X-Files universe. There's some surfacy psychic/religious nonsense, but the basic plot really belongs in an Ashley Judd movie. Mulder has no use in a normal murder mystery. Is the movie creepy? Yes. Supernatural? Nope. But you will definitely remember the big reveal for a long time.

So yeah, this movie only got made for the diehard fans. If that's you, you saw it over the summer. If you have any passing interest, give it a go. There's plenty of worse stuff out there.

Grade: B-