'The X-Files'
by Simon Calloway
Cast: David Duchovny; Gillian Anderson; John Nevill; William B. Davis; Martin Landeu
(originally written 6/20/98)
Every Sunday night I would be glued to my sofa, watching my favorite television show from 9-10pm. It is a show about mystery, atmosphere, science fiction, horror, conspiracies, and characters so worthy of regocnition, I am pleased to find out even the Pope knows who Agents Mulder and Scully are (okay, maybe he doesn't, but who doesn't other than him?).
Creator Chris Carter made a breakthrough show. A show unlike any other on the air today, yesterday, or tomorrow. Now, he has taken a step further: Moving this monument onto the silver screen. The results are a class act.
(Warning: spoilers ahead!) The film continues the adventures of Mulder and Scully (if you don't know about their quest for truth, justice, and aliens, than what are you doing reading this review?) from season five. That right there is something I have never seen, a show's season finale written right into a motion picture.
The Agents are taken off their X-File cases and assigned to a Dallas bomb threat. When the bomb goes off (in a frightening, intensely realistic portray), Mulder and Scully are blamed for misguidence and split apart. Mulder is later told by a shadowy figure (Martin Landeu is a brava performance) that the bomb intentionally exploded to cover-up a conspiracy dealing with the body of a little boy who was infected with the deadly black-oil.
This sends our heros back to Dallas to investigate the mishaps, which turns out to be the key in an on-going conspiracy to hide the evidence of extraterrestrial life on this planet for millions of years.
As sci-fi goes, X-Files is a classic movie that deserves to be seen on the bigscreen (which I am going to do again). Most people might not understand or like the film's story and aspect of Mulder and Scully's quest. Only a certain amount of fans and serious sci-fi buffs (not the Star Wars type) will appreciate the movie's intelligence and way it doesn't exploit aliens, as did Independece Day (1996) did. X-Files is about secrets and mysterious stories, and, the film is, also, splashy in the FX department. But it doesn't show-off the laborious set pieces too much. ID4 was too grande in the FX, and not in the plot.
The X-Files will likely be the best film this summer, until Saving Private Ryan (which I hear is getting some great critical acclaime already). If you can't understand the film's relentless fascination with the dark side and life-long goals, too bad for you.
*****
~TeenViews (c) 1999~
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