Sunday 22 November 2009

Film Review: THE X-FILES: I WANT TO BELIEVE (2008)


Director: Chris Carter
Running time: 104 mins (approx)
Certificate (UK): 15

Watched on DVD Sunday 22nd November 2009.

PLEASE NOTE: POSSIBLE SPOILERS IN THIS REVIEW.

A young female FBI agent is abducted from her home in Virginia. A psychic ex-priest, who also happens to be a convicted paedophile, has led the FBI to a clue to her whereabouts. Unfortunately, this leaves the FBI in an awkward situation and they are forced to contact Dana Scully in the hope that she can find Fox Mulder, who is the only man with experience of this kind of thing. Scully is now working as a full-time doctor and wants nothing to do with the FBI, but she contacts Mulder and persuades him to come out of hiding.

The lead FBI agent, ASAC Dakota Whitney, has nothing to go on except a severed arm, not belonging to the missing agent, that Father Joseph Crissman led them to in a frozen lake. There is much scepticism about Father Joe, particularly from her colleague Agent Mosley Drummy. Mulder, however, is prepared to listen to the priest and he eventually leads them to the abductors. I won’t say too much more, not wanting to give away too many spoilers.

It was good to see Mulder and Scully back on the screen again; even Walter Skinner puts in an appearance towards the end of the film. As usual, David Duchovny as Fox Mulder and Gillian Anderson as Dana Scully were excellent is the roles we’ve come to know them so well for. They were ably supported by Amanda Peet as ASAC Dakota Whitney, Billy Connolly as Father Joseph Crissman, Xzibit as Agent Mosley Drummy and, of course, Mitch Pileggi as Walter Skinner.

A very well made film that, like the TV series, was quite slowly paced, but kept you interested. There was just one thing that irked me a bit, the character of Father Joe was dropped about three quarters of the way through. They a built him up a lot throughout the film and all of a sudden he was just cast aside, which seemed a bit callous. Apart from that, a pretty good effort, no great special effects or action sequences to speak of, but a very atmospheric piece that was quite reminiscent of the TV show I grew to love.

My score: 6.9/10

LINKS:
IMDb Site: http://uk.imdb.com/title/tt0443701/
Official Site: http://xfiles.com/
Trailer: http://uk.imdb.com/rg/VIDEO_PLAY/LINK/video/imdb/vi4142334233/

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