Subject: Retrospective: The X-Files: Fight the Future (1998)

From: [email-masked] (Steven Bailey)
Date: 28 May 2000 18:27:36 GMT

Entertainment Weekly asked, "Now that The X-Files is a major motion
picture, will questions about the cover-ups, conspiracies, and Cigarette
Smoking Man finally be answered? Will Mulder and Scully finally kiss?
And will anyone besides the show's viewers care?" The answers are:
somewhat; close, but no cigar; and (based on my own non-viewership of
the show) definitely.

As someone whose interest in the TV series extends only to Gillian
Anderson's sultriness, let me state that I know I'm treading on sacred
ground here. The show has such a cult following that major publications
feel obliged to provide background info for understanding the
characters. So the bottom line is: The more worshipful viewers will
tolerate it but still be disappointed. And the non-informed moviegoer
will find sufficient entertainment value to pay for a ticket.

If nothing else, the movie--officially known as The X-Files: Fight the
Future--wins a prize for the most attention-getting prologue in film
history. It starts in the year 35,000 B.C., moves to modern-day Texas,
and establishes the movie's ongoing motif: There are some pesky aliens
on Earth, but they're under control as long as we can keep them
underground and non-reproductive. As soon as they start to gestate, it's
time to clamp the locks and burn rubber.

Eventually we meet those irrepressible FBI agents Dana Scully (Anderson)
and Fox Mulder (David Duchovny), whose beloved X-Files department has
been scuttled. While investigating a bomb threat, they uncover--say it
ain't so!--a conspiracy. I can't divulge much more without incurring the
wrath of X-Filers everywhere. Suffice to say, they end up taking the rap
when one of their superiors is sacrificed--needlessly so, in terms of
plot, since I still couldn't tell you what role he played in the
cover-up.

But then, most of the movie is like that. X-Files creator Chris Carter
would have you think that he has a grand, sprawling scenario of
conspiracy that he's gradually unraveling in the course of the TV
series. Personally, I think he's just making it all up as he goes along.

That said, the movie provides enough genuine emotion, humor, and
suspense to make it one of the year's more worthwhile films. In any
other context, Duchovny and Anderson's Jack Webb-like declamations would
probably get them laughed off the screen. But in a setting where bigger
and smarmier aliens keep popping up, their low-key approach makes sense.
And Mulder and Scully's concern for each other (more like siblings than
potential lovers) provides some genuinely touching moments.

A word of praise, also, for the rest of the cast, especially "guest
star" Martin Landau (who, as a Mission: Impossible veteran, provides
another nice layer of conspiracy irony). And after so many sci-fi films
where the future looks as though it's lit with a ten-watt bulb (see the
Alien series), it's a treat to see a movie where every frame looks
downright sumptuous.

The final tally: To the casual viewer, the movie at least makes me
understand why the series has such a devoted following. To the X-Files
devotee who hopes that a two-hour movie will answer all of the series'
questions, the truth is still way out there.

The X-Files: Fight the Future is rated PG-13 for some profanity, graphic
violence, and, er, some unique dissection scenes.

Submitted by: Steven Bailey
http://pages.hotbot.com/movies/skad13

Steven Bailey, a movie reviewer for The Beaches Leader newspaper in
Jacksonville Beach, Fla., has reviews posted in The Internet Movie
Database at:
http://www.imdb.com/M/reviews_by?Steven+Bailey

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