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Rating 2¼
Directed by Rob Bowman
Written by Chris Carter, from a story by Chris Carter and Frank Spotnitz
Starring David Duchovny, Gillian Anderson, Martin Landau, John Neville, William B Davis, Mitch Pileggi, Armin Mueller-Stahl, Bruce Harwood, Tom Braidwood, Dean Haglund, Jeffrey DeMunn, Blythe Danner and Terry O’Quinn
FBI agents Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) are assisting in the search of a federal building in Dallas, Texas after a tip-off that a bomb had been planted there. Mulder follows a hunch and checks a building across the street. An explosive device is discovered and the building is cleared moments before the bomb detonates, causing considerable damage. Following an encounter with Alvin Kurtzweil (Martin Landau), a conspiracy theorist who claims to have once worked on secret government experiments with Mulder’s father, he begins to suspect a high level cover up involving proof of the existence of aliens. He persuades Scully to help him, even though the “X Files” has been shut down and the two of them are under investigation, putting both their lives in deadly danger.
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‘The X Files’, also known as ‘The X Files: Fight the Future’, was released into cinemas in America in June 1998 following the end of the fifth season of the television series. At the time, I was a huge fan of the show and was very much looking forward to the film. I came away from it feeling decidedly disappointed. Despite a reasonable opening thirty minutes or so it quickly ran out of steam and ended up playing like a painfully over-stretched run-of-the-mill television episode. Some of the major problems that the television series had encountered and been unable to resolve were brought into sharper relief here, not least of them being Scully’s continued refusal to believe what she saw with her very own eyes and her constant attempt to find another explanation for it.
Watching the film again for the first time in over nine years, exactly the same problems became apparent. It is certainly a whole lot better than the dismal 2008 film ‘The X Files: I Want to Believe’, but it’s still not all that great. There are far too many gaping holes in the plot and the story just doesn’t stretch to the two-hour running time, although it is certainly not entirely bereft of merit.
‘The X Files’ movie has a 63% fresh rating at Rotten Tomatoes from 68 reviews. It had a box office gross in excess of £189 million, nearly three times as much as the belated second film.
Review posted 5 April 2009.
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Rating 2
Directed by Chris Carter
Written by Chris Carter and Frank Spotnitz
Starring David Duchovny, Gillian Anderson, Billy Connolly, Amanda Peet, Xzibit and Mitch Pileggi
Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson), who now works as a medical physician/surgeon in a hospital, is approached by the FBI and asked to help them locate Fox Mulder (David Duchovny), now a fugitive, with the promise that he will be given amnesty. Mulder is asked to help with the investigation into the abduction of several women and the claims made by a defrocked Catholic priest and convicted paedophile, Father Joseph (Billy Connolly), who claims to be receiving visions from God about the abductions. Mulder agrees to help and Scully reluctantly becomes involved.
Released in 2008, ten years after the first film and six years after the end of the television series (which ran for a total of nine seasons and 202 episodes), ‘The X Files: I Want to Believe’ proved to be a rather disappointing and anti-climactic coda to a once much-loved franchise. Eschewing the alien mythology that drove the television series and was the subject of the first film, its vaguely religious paranormal theme had already been explored with much better and concise results in the old 40-minute television episodes.
Gillian Anderson and David Duchovny never manage to spark the way they once had done, although some residue of the old chemistry still remains. The absence of several favourite recurring characters from the television series hinders the film – and the brief appearance of Walter Skinner (Mitch Pileggi), their old FBI boss, feels like an afterthought. The story never really goes anywhere and Father Joseph proves to be something of a non-character.
For old X-Files fans it’s nice to see Mulder and Scully one more time, even in such disappointing circumstances. For anyone else, I imagine the film would be absolutely pointless. Critical reaction to it was largely muted and it has a 32% rotten rating at Rotten Tomatoes from 156 reviews. It grossed a credible $68.2 million at the box office against a production budget of $30 million.
Review posted 30 December 2008
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Rating 2Written and directed by Dan ReedStarring Gillian Anderson and Danny Dyer
I first heard about this low-budget (£1.8 million) British “horror” film (made, like ‘Severance’ before it, with money from the UK Film Council via the National Lottery fund) when it was about to be released into cinemas in April of 2007. The film was made in 2005.
A horror film starring Gillian Anderson sounded like a tempting proposition and I toyed with the idea of going to see it. However, I felt a bit ambivalent about the premise. In the event, the film was only given a limited release and it didn’t come to any cinemas near enough to me to actually get me off my arse and out of the house.
It is now available on DVD, so I rented it.
It’s not a horror film at all, of course. It’s a revenge thriller. Anderson stars opposite Danny Dyer, the Cockney actor (genuine Cockney, rather than Guy Ritchie-style “Mockney”) who was also in ‘Severance’.
The plot is simple enough. Gillian Anderson plays Alice, a rich and successful professional who wants a “bit of rough” and finds it in the form of happy-go-lucky Adam, played by Danny Dyer. While they are driving back from a party out in the country in the dead of night they are ambushed by “country-types” (see ‘Straw Dogs’, ‘The Wicker Man’, ‘An American Werewolf in London’), who beat Adam into a bloody pulp, blinding him in one eye, and brutally rape Alice.
From this point onwards the film is about what this ordeal does to them both and their need for vengeance. It attempts to deal with the psychological consequences of what happens, but it’s a bleak, cold, unpleasant and unrelenting film. It looks very British – more ‘Get Carter’ than, well, ‘Get Carter’ the remake!
Both Anderson and Dyer are very good. I wanted to see the film and I’m glad I did. However, I’m not sure what to make of it all. It certainly doesn’t work on any level as a serious portrait of the horror of rape.
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FBI agents Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) are assisting in the search of a federal building in Dallas, Texas after a tip-off that a bomb had been planted there. Mulder follows a hunch and checks a building across the street. An explosive device is discovered and the building is cleared moments before the bomb detonates, causing considerable damage. Following an encounter with Alvin Kurtzweil (Martin Landau), a conspiracy theorist who claims to have once worked on secret government experiments with Mulder’s father, he begins to suspect a high level cover up involving proof of the existence of aliens. He persuades Scully to help him, even though the “X Files” has been shut down and the two of them are under investigation, putting both their lives in deadly danger.
‘The X Files’, also known as ‘The X Files: Fight the Future’, was released into cinemas in America in June 1998 following the end of the fifth season of the television series. At the time, I was a huge fan of the show and was very much looking forward to the film. I came away from it feeling decidedly disappointed. Despite a reasonable opening thirty minutes or so it quickly ran out of steam and ended up playing like a painfully over-stretched run-of-the-mill television episode. Some of the major problems that the television series had encountered and been unable to resolve were brought into sharper relief here, not least of them being Scully’s continued refusal to believe what she saw with her very own eyes and her constant attempt to find another explanation for it.
