by Daniel Johnson

Created on: February 10, 2009   Last Updated: February 27, 2009

X-FILES: I WANT TO BELIEVE ":http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0443701(Dir. Chris Carter, 2008) "I'm done chasing monsters in the dark" says former agent now full time Doctor Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) and apparently so is X-Files creator/writer/director Chris Carter because this is strangley stripped of the supernatural elements that were the bread and butter of the TV show and the 1998 movie (X-FILES: FIGHT THE FUTURE). There's no cigarette smoking man , no lone gunmen, and most surprisingly no aliens. In other words everything that was cool about the X-Files is absent. A bearded Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) is yet again needed by the FBI after years of being hunted by them. He's reluctant at first to help them with the case of several missing women, one of them an agent, but of course he shaves while Anderson dons her best 90's professional pant suits and they rev up the old trusty X-Files mystery machine van onto a road into the wilderness chasing adventures while blaring Mark Snow's immortal theme song on their vehicle's sound system. Okay, I made part of that up because I was so disinterested in what really happened.

It all begs the question why bring back Duchovny, Anderson, and Mitch Pileggi as Walter Skinner for a plot that's just one step removed from an Ashley Judd/Morgan Freeman formula thriller? It doesn't make sense to just drop tidbits about the not-so super-duo's child and Mulder's long lost sister instead into diving head first into what fans want and deserve that is, to actually be X-Files. A plot involving British comedian Billy Connolly as a twisted psychic and cryptic brain numbing dialogue doesn't even recall the lesser no linear episodes of the classic 90's cult show. The first film was creepy fun, this is just creepy. Real life subjects like Duchovny's addiction to internet porn and the case of Anderson's missing career * would be more compelling than this. Carter said that if this movie was successful there would be a third film that would deal with aliens and all the conspiracy stuff that this severely lacked. Well, the film bombed but I still hope he'll make a third one solely to serve as an apology. I wanted to believe that this film didn't suck but alas, it's as bad as its title. * I know that's a cheap shot. She's actually been in a few recent notable movies such as THE LAST KING OF SCOTLAND and TRISTHAM SHANDY: A COCK AND BULL STORY with Steve Coogan incidentally.

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