Movie Review: X-Files: I Want To Believe

So do I. I want to believe that Chris Carter could actually make an inane movie like this and spoil the reputation of a series as brilliant as X Files. I want to believe that David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson agreed to play the roles of Mulder and Scully again for this movie. I want to believe that a sequel can be as bad as this. But I find all this quite unbelievable. Though unfortunately everything is true.

At the risk of sounding overly critical, I must say that the movie is extremely banal, predictable and lacking what makes a movie successful - substance. For those who are fans of the series X-files, including me, know that it is about supernatural and paranormal activities. The two FBI agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully unravel the mysteries of the inexplicable phenomena including UFOs etc. This movie is nowhere near the original theme. It goes down the path of a psycho thriller movie which is as lowly and teen-like as 'I know what you did last summer' and others in the same category.

** Potential spoiler warning **

Several people end up missing and a priest who is a convicted pedophile, has divine visions about these missing people. This is the only so called paranormal phenomenon involved in the movie. And the whole issue is treated with so much banality that it remains neither a Christian-movie (like Christian rock music) nor does it become a supernatural thriller. The dialogues are some of the worst I have ever heard in a Hollywood or a Bollywood movie. Some of the scenes are so annoying that you feel like leaving your seat and going back to office on a Saturday evening.

Some of the infantile scenes include,

1. Agent Scully is now a doctor and is treating a boy who is terminally ill. All of a sudden, one fine morning she comes up with an idea of applying Stem Cell therapy on that kid. And guess what she does! She opens her internet browser and opens our good old google and literally types 'Stem Cell Research'. Then she randomly clicks on some of the links and she prints out a report out of it in a few minutes with title 'Stem Cell Research' and the next day she goes into the hospital, prepares the operation theater for the surgery and operates upon that boy!

Way to go, Google !!!!

2. Scully and Mulder are standing outside the FBI office (For no apparent reason) and they look at the portraits of G.W. Bush and Edgar Hoover besides the entrance and without any relevance, the X-Files theme music starts playing (For those who are not aware of that, X-Files theme music is a pretty spooky one). If the attempt was made to make us laugh with a completely childish Bush-joke, it failed miserably.

3. Mulder's car (The director is apparently a huge fan of Ford cars as they are all over in the movie) is pushed off a hill by the bad guy and falls several feet in a trench. And yet, like a superhero, Mulder emerges after a few hours from the car and goes on to finish the villains in their own home ground.

4. Mulder's jokes and particularly one dialogue - a degenerated, crude and offensive joke are annoying. I wish the script writer did not attempt to show off his own humor. Or the lack of it.

5. What is with this pretending to solve moral issues pleaguing Christianity? Is the director trying to convince Christian community that Stem cell research is good after all? Is he trying to showcase the divine God-granted powers of priests who have visions and hear voices of God? Even those priets who are convicted pedophiles? I don't understand. What has it got to do with X-Files for God's sake? Why? Why?

And the list goes on and on. The movie was so bad that I would write this director off my movie watch-list for years to come. I beg anyone who has any plans to watch this movie not to do so. Do yourselves a favor. Stay home. Go out for a walk. Read Washington Post or NY Times but do not watch this movie.