I So Wanted to Believe

Okay, let me just start off by saying that I love The X-Files. I've seen every episode, even though the eighth and ninth seasons kind of sucked after Mulder left I still watched. It was the only TV show I ever got really into in the nineties. And I even thought the first movie was pretty good.

That said, I'm not an obsessed fan. Yeah I have the DVD's, but I don't have t-shirts and posters and I don't go around quoting lines from the show. I do have a shrine to David Duchovny in my closet, but that's another matter. (Not really, I don't have a shrine.)

But I was surprised when, in the midst of Sex and the City hitting the big screen and rumors about a Friends movie (seriously, who would watch that?), I heard they were making a new X-Files flick. I didn't know anything about it, but I so wanted to believe they could really turn a great, cancelled TV series into a workable movie (not that I thought Sex and the City or Friends was a great show, but you get what I'm saying).

Now when I think of The X-Files, I think of aliens and black oil and government conspiracy. This movie has none of that, not even a little. And you at least expect some kind of paranormal activity, right? The most paranormal thing about this movie is that one of the characters is a little bit psychic. So the only thing to relate this movie to the television series is the fact that Mulder and Scully are the main characters.

Don't get me wrong, it's not a terrible movie. It's a decent enough thriller, but it's just not The X-Files. It's just a crime thriller that happens to involve some X-Files characters. It's almost two hours long but moves so quickly it doesn't feel it. And sure, it's interesting. I can't help but feel, though, that someone totally unacquainted with the series would enjoy the film a lot more than I did.

What it really boils down to is this just feels like a long episode from the show that Chris Carter never got around to making, and an episode that isn't really woven into the serialized plot of the X-Files franchise.