bunkaroo

They've been running commercials for it like crazy around here.

bunkaroo

I'll spoiler this just in case:

dolphinboy

What you say is true. If there is another sequal it will be the last and it will try and wrap up the mythology arc. The operative word being try.

Ebert gave the movie 3 1/2 stars. It certainly doesn't mean the movies is great, but I trust him for more than those people I've never heard of writing for mags & online review sites I've also never heard of , and whatever else is over at RT now.

Here is Ebert's review....

lots of spoilers!!!!!

The X-Files: I Want to Believe


// / July 24, 2008

20th Century-Fox presents a film directed by Chris Carter and written by Franz Spotnitz and Carter. Running time: 104 minutes. Classified PG-13 (for violent and disturbing content and thematic material).



By Roger Ebert

"The X-Files: I Want to Believe" arrives billed as a "stand-alone" film that requires no familiarity with the famous television series. So it is, leaving us to piece together the plot on our own. And when I say "piece together," trust me, that's exactly what I mean. In an early scene, a human arm turns up, missing its body, and other spare parts are later discovered.

The arm is found in a virtuoso scene showing dozens of FBI agents lined up and marching across a field of frozen snow. They are led by a white-haired, entranced old man who suddenly drops to his knees and cries out that this is the place! And it is.

Now allow me to jump ahead and drag in the former agents Mulder and Scully. Mulder (David Duchovny) has left the FBI under a cloud because of his belief in the paranormal. Scully (Gillian Armstrong) is a top-level surgeon, recruited to bring Scully in from the cold, all his sins forgiven, to help on an urgent case. An agent is missing, and the white-haired man, we learn, is Father Joe (Billy Connolly), a convicted pedophile, who is said to be a psychic.

Scully brings in Mulder, but detests the old priest's crimes and thinks he is a fraud. Mulder, of course, wants to believe Father Joe could help on the case. But hold on one second. Even assuming that Father Joe planted the severed arm himself, you'll have to admit it's astonishing that he can lead agents to its exact resting place in a snow-covered terrain the size of several football fields, with no landmarks. Even before he started weeping blood instead of tears, I believed him. Scully keeps right on insulting him right to his face. She wants not to believe.

Scully is emotionally involved in the case of a young boy who will certainly die if he doesn't have a risky experimental bone marrow treatment. This case, interesting in itself, is irrelevant to the rest of the plot except that it inspires a Google search that offers a fateful clue. Apart from that, what we're faced with is a series of victims, including Agent Dakota Whitney (Amanda Peet) and eventually Mulder himself, who are run off the road by a weirdo with a snowplow.

Who is doing this? And why does Father Joe keep getting psychic signals of barking dogs? And is the missing agent still alive, as he thinks she is? And won't anyone listen to Mulder, who eventually finds himself all alone in the middle of a blizzard, being run off the road, and then approaching a suspicious building complex after losing his cell phone? And how does he deal with a barking dog?

I make it sound a little silly. Well, it is a little silly, but it's also a skillful thriller, giving us just enough cutaways to a sinister laboratory to keep us fascinated. What happens in this laboratory you will have to find out for yourself, but the solution may be more complex than you think if you only watch casually. Hint: Pay close attention to the hands.

What I appreciated about "The X-Files: I Want to Believe" was that it involved actual questions of morality, just as "The Dark Knight" does. It's not simply about good and evil but about choices. Come to think of it, Scully's dying child may be connected to the plot in another way, since it poses the question: Are any means justified to keep a dying person alive?

The movie lacks a single explosion. It has firearms, but nobody is shot. The special effects would have been possible in the era of "Frankenstein." Lots of stunt people were used. I had the sensation of looking at real people in real spaces, not motion-capture in CGI spaces. There was a tangible quality to the film that made the suspense more effective because it involved the physical world.

Of course, it involves a psychic world, too. And the veteran Irish actor Billy Connolly creates a quiet, understated performance as a man who hates himself for his sins, makes no great claims, does not understand his psychic powers, is only trying to help. He wants to believe he can be forgiven. As for Duchovny and Anderson, these roles are their own. It's like they're in repertory. They still love each other, and still believe they would never work as a couple.

Or should I say they want to believe?

The movie is insidious. It involves evil on not one level but two. The evildoers, it must be said, are singularly inept; they receive bills for medical supplies under their own names, and surely there must be more efficient ways to abduct victims and purchase animal tranquilizers. But what they're up to is so creepy, and the snow-covered Virginia landscapes so haunting, and the wrong-headedness of Scully so frustrating, and the FBI bureaucracy so stupid, and Mulder so brave, that the movie works like thrillers used to work, before they were required to contain villains the size of buildings.

wanderlust

was sooo disappointed with the show which was more like a movie-length criminal minds. almost walked out of the show halfway.

d2cheer

It didn't seem to help Hellboy 2 at all last week...

Rogue588

Damn you and your Wall*E hatin' self, Orndorf!!!!!!!!!! I tried really hard not to click the spoiler button, but I couldn't...

Isn't the SD Comic Con this weekend? If so, that would be a pretty good time to open up this flick, don'tcha think?

chris_sc77

Down to 29% with 39 reviews counted. This has really got me depressed. In any case I'll definitely be heading to the theater with extremely low expectations.
Is Chris Carter gonna screw things up a second time. (And by the 1st time I'm referring to the end of the series not the first movie which I think is great.)

Edit: It also a appears there is a scene midway through the credits just FYI.

Setzer

I don't care what the critics are saying about it, still going to see this tomorrow night with my wife.

Seantn

I must say though that the critics that like it seem to like it quite a bit, and not just a little bit, which is encouraging.

RTisBetter

Just got back from the midnight showing. Overall it feels like a decent but largely forgettable Season 7 two-parter. Duchovny and Anderson are terrific and their one-on-one scenes together are strong, but the story itself and especially the secondary characters are all dull and boring, including the main villain. A shame because the show excelled at creating memorable, creepy villains and hilarious, one-off characters. Still, if youre a fan of the show it's worth a matinee. and stay through the credits

Matto1020

Also just got back from a midnight showing...and I loved it!

It definetly skips ALL aspects of the mythology, and you can forget about aliens...just a good little crime thriller that just happens to have a little supernatural elements to it.

It definetly feels like an old school style X-Files episode. I don't know why people say forgettable characters in this flick...Bill Connely was great, Amanda Peet was actually much better than I was expecting...and the Xhbit (or whatever his name is) isn't necessarily memorable...but he at least is decent in the flick.

Lots of nice little references to the show for the fans. Mark Snow gives a great score that is very X-Files-ish. Plus lots of dark night scenes, in the snowy winter...much more X-Files than the later L.A. seasons.

Don't go in expecting a lot of action..because there practically is none. That's fine though...because most first season episodes didn't have a lot. Also don't expect some big revolutionary story...it's actually a very small story...yes it does feel like two episodes put together.

After the sour taste the last few seasons (especially the series finale) left in my mouth...this was definatly a breath of fresh air! If they make more movies (and I hope they do)...I wouldn't mind one bit if they kept the Monster Of The Week format instead of going back to the overly convoluted conspiracy story.

Kudos Carter...you've somewhat redeemed yourself!

Oh and by the way...don't stay through the credits...that was the only thing I shook my head at. It wasn't really cute...it wasn't funny...it was just stupid. Trust me...you'll be a better person

RTisBetter

^^

Did you honestly give two craps when Amanda Peet fell to her death?? No, I sure as fuck know i didn't. This was a boring X-File episode with boring secondary characters and boring characterizations.

There are infinitely better episodes of the show that put this film to shame. It wont make any new fans and will only slightly appease the long-time fans.

An overall waste of time.

Matto1020

The death came out of nowhere...and I was bummed it was her instead of the other agent.

Kind of hard to get all sappy over an agent that you just met 70 minutes ago though.

dolphinboy

When it's Amanda Peet, you have every right to feel bummed.

Don't know why people need to come in and basically restate their negative opinion almost to discredit the opinion of someone who didn't agree with them.

We thought the movie was very good.

Was it everything I'd been hoping for all of this time? No.

And it would have taken an X-Files movie that was so good it was nominated for an Academy Award for me to even consider allowing Chris Carter to be off the hook for how he finished of the show, in particular the last season and in that (redundant, I know) god-awful finale that I'll never watch again.

Lara Means

I saw the midnight show and really enjoyed the movie. I was disappointed in two aspects though. First being that pretty much all characters that arent named Mulder or Scully are forgettable. Whats worse is that the main villain is crap. Its a shame we didnt get a bad guy on the same quality as Donald Pfaster from the tv show.

I also didnt care for the music by Mark Snow. It didnt sound like X-Files at all. It seemed like he tried to update it with more electronic beats or some shit. Anyway, its still a good movie.

lordwow

seriously, you couldn't spoiler this?

tommyp007

Wife and I are going to see this tomorrow night. We're both big fans of the show, having recently finished all 9 seasons on DVD in anticipation of this release.

mdc3000

Dammit... serves me right for reading this thread before hitting the matinee...just needed to see what real fans thought (I was skipping posts that looked long and detailed...but then the first line of RTisBetter's 2nd post fucked me)... shitballs.

videoguy

My biggest concern for the movie was how it connected with the final TV episode, which ended on the kiss between Mulder and Scully if I remember correctly. Their relationship was a big aspect of the show and that ending led me to believe that they got together. I was concerned when I saw the previews and I'm still concerned that the movie skips over explaining what happened between the two before the movie and after that kiss.

As given in a previous reply, Ebert's review says this:

"As for Duchovny and Anderson, these roles are their own. It's like they're in repertory. They still love each other, and still believe they would never work as a couple.

Or should I say they want to believe?"

I thought that was a great response and very true to the series (before the last kiss anyway). I just hope that the movie displays this idea in order to answer my question of what happens with their relationship between the gap of the show and this current movie.

My Other Self

I wasn't a religious follower of the show but I did enjoy it. I also enjoyed the first film.

I had every intention of catching this today or tomorrow but with the reviews it's getting I may just wait for the DVD.

Shannon Nutt

Really! I mean the movie just opened!

NitroJMS

I caught it last night and thought it was ok. Definitely not as strong or exciting as the first one.

I didn't stay after the credits though, what happens then?

Zodiac_Speaking

I was xcited for this but after seeing the midnight showing, I was thoroughly disappointed. There was some promise early on, all undone by a weak "villian" if you consider that a big bad, hokey jokes, and overall, there was no reason to make this. It felt like a long lost episode: interesting to see but utlimately should've been lost.

Gillian and David have great chemistry, but this was a weak attempt to bring the characters together for one last time. It really didn't feel theatrical; if this was a Fox Sunday night movie, I'd be a bit more at ease, but "Fight for the Future" was way mor badass than this. It felt epic, action packed, and had a lot of interesting ideas.

I just can't believe this film. Give us chills, monsters, and conspiracy-this is called X-Files not a CSI movie.

Grade: C-

yoshimi

I really enjoyed the film. I agree that it felt more like an episode of Criminal Minds or CSI than The X-Files but the chemistry of Mulder and Scully made it worthwhile. Of course I am a huge fan anyways.

Rogue588

Yeah.

Well, I wanted to see what the first impressions on this flick were (since there were no damn midnight showings around here ), but that post signaled the end of me reading this thread until I see it. RTisBetter's first post (& assessment were fine), but that was just gratuitous.