'The X-Files: I Want to Believe' But Cannot

To be honest, I feel slightly foolish for writing about, of all films, “X-Files: I Want to Believe.” Considering the pleading title and disastrous latter seasons of the 1990s television show, this essay demonstrates I must have really wanted to believe in something for no good reason other than a careless and fun leap of faith.

“I Want to Believe” could have been a witty and intelligent mystery. It is witty a few times, maybe even touching a couple of times, but mainly left me wondering why I had attempted to be a believer.

The film does not fall prey to the traditional flaws of many summer blockbusters. It is not filled with gratuitous and poorly conceived special effects. It is not trying to be bigger than what it should or can be. It is not a badly acted spree of stupid writing. But “I Want to Believe” cannot ultimately stand due to its shortsighted reliance on director/writer Chris Carter’s solid visuals and the chemistry between David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson.

With the exception of Fox Mulder (Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Anderson), the characters can be cut in half with scissors. Billy Connolly plays a psychic and former Catholic priest and boy molester and that description and a scene where he cries blood are about as interesting as he gets. His character is written as a penitent paranormal talent, but Connolly’s performance is guiltless scruffy hair notwithstanding. Two FBI agents played by Amanda Peet and Xzibit move the plot along like robots. Skinner, a main character from the television show, makes an unsurprising and pointless appearance. No one but those familiar with the show could know why he is there.

The story offers a mystery, but the unraveling is clockwork because everyone can follow a psychic. The disturbing revelation is that a group has kidnapped a woman with the goal to remove her head and sew the head of a man on her body. This idea might fascinate you for a few minutes as it involves decapitation and surgery and identity, but its execution is only for the sake of that brief fascination. Which is usually fine within the body of a 50-minute television program. In the theater the flippant scene sets off a gigantic so what.

Admittedly, the subplot detailing Scully’s struggle to cure a deathly ill boy with a risky procedure raises an admirable discussion about faith.

Just read the above line as a small compliment. Proselytized I am not.