THE X FILES: FIGHT THE FUTURE
Starring David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson
Written by Chris Carter and Frank Spotnitz
Directed by Rob Bowman
Let me preface this review by stating up front that I am not a fan of THE X FILES. Not that I have anything against the show - it's just that I watch so many movies that if I watched TV too, I'd really have no life. I am wired into pop culture enough to know the basics: about abducted sisters and black ooze and a cigarette-smoking villain who may be Mulder's father. I know that the show has grown more popular every year it's been on, making it the first serious rival to the uber-fandom of STAR TREK that has consumed the lives of so many otherwise rational adults. A movie version of this phenomenon was perhaps inevitable, but its success was by no means guaranteed. Series creator Chris Carter and director Rob Bowman had, really, a daunting task before them: to make a feature film that would satisfy their core constituents, entertain newbies and make enough money to avoid embarrassing themselves. Did they succeed? From this outsider's perspective, I'd say they did. THE X FILES: FIGHT THE FUTURE is an entertaining piece of fiction, and the first truly original release of this otherwise lackluster summer movie season.
If you're a fan of the series, you will no doubt have already seen the picture by the time you read this review. On the off chance that you're reading this from your hospital bed or on a cruise ship, however, I'll refrain from spoilers. Suffice it to say that the plot stems from events which occurred in the last couple of episodes of the series, events which involve a "black oil" which is really the vanguard of an extraterrestrial viral invasion of Earth. The film opens in Texas in 3500 B.C., in which two primitive travelers stumble upon the virus in an icy cave. This is some virus: it mutates rapidly into a deadly intelligent humanoid life form which seems to exist solely to disembowel unsuspecting humans.
We fast-forward to the present day, when a Texas youth falls into the same cave and releases the same virus. This event leads us to Dallas, where we find FBI agents Mulder (David Duchovny) and Scully (Gillian Anderson) relieved of their X-Files duties and reassigned to an anti-terrorism unit. The death of the infected boy leads directly to the destruction of the Dallas Federal building, which in turn leads Mulder and Scully back into the massive alien-invasion cover-up helmed by the mysterious Well-Manicured Man (John Neville) and the even-more-mysterious Cigarette-Smoking Man (William B. Davis). Before they know it our two intrepid agents are back in the familiar territory of illicit autopsies, nervous informants, unmarked black helicopters, secret government installations and sublimated sexual energy. It looked to me like you X-philes out there had everything your paranoid hearts could desire.
Like the STAR TREK movies, THE X FILES works in a cinematic shorthand of sorts, introducing its main characters without the typically-required exposition because they already have a long history together. This history resulted in a lot of enthusiasm in the friendly audience with which I saw the film: they cheered Mulder when he appeared, cheered loudly for Scully when she started barking orders at the security guards in the Federal Building, and laughed at all the in-jokes. They didn't seem to mind that the plot is all a lot of hokum. There are a couple of tense and clever set-pieces, including a brilliant one involving a monstrous swarm of bees and a field of corn (don't ask). But the picture was hurt by the lack of a true villain and the need to keep things open-ended enough to avoid interfering with the on-going series. Carter and company can't really wrap things up when there's a new season's worth of skullduggery to consider.
But the plot is beside the point. What I learned from watching this picture is that the alien conspiracy is really just window dressing for the true key to THE X FILES' success: the central love story. Mulder and Scully are passionately in love with each other. To succumb to their feelings would be to destroy their working relationship and thus imperil the fate of the Earth; it is therefore our treat to watch them physically strain against the chains wrapped around their libidos. These two make Sam and Diane look like pikers. Duchovny and Anderson, five year series veterans both, are in full command of this knowledge and are thus able to inject real emotion into their scenes together. If you watch closely, you'll realize that the picture is even structured like a traditional love story. It doesn't matter whether your setting is the Civil War, the Bolshevik Revolution, a doomed ocean liner or a vast government conspiracy - the point is to keep the lovers apart as long as possible, because that's where the drama comes from.
So THE X FILES seems to satisfy old fans and create new ones - at least on the night I saw it. It offers a refreshing sci-fi vision that stands head and shoulders above all the Alien clones and refried INDEPENDENCE DAY-style claptrap splattered on the movie screens this decade. It also has a future as a franchise, if its creators can maintain this level of quality. Not only did it demonstrate exactly what drives the show's success, but it made me a believer. I just might have to start scheduling time on Sunday nights.
GRADE: B+
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