Overall Rating
  Awesome: 17.98%
Worth A Look: 34.83%
Average: 23.6%
Pretty Bad: 15.17%
Total Crap: 8.43%
11 reviews, 112 user ratings
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| X-Files: Fight the Future, The |
by Rob Gonsalves
"I've seen the future and, brother, it is boring."
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Early in 'The X-Files: Fight the Future,' Agent Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) is getting drunk in a bar and rambling about his life to a bartender. "I'm a disgrace to my superiors and an embarrassment to my peers," he mumbles. "They call me Spooky." Nobody will call this movie "spooky," as hotly-awaited and incessantly-hyped as it's been. Indeed, most of it is pedestrian and boring, with the kind of murky script and uninspired "suspense" sequences that wouldn't have been enough to get this movie made if it didn't come with the 'X-Files' label on it.The truth isn't out there, it's in here in this review: The movie is a dud. Having seen perhaps ten episodes of the TV series since its 1993 premiere, I went into the movie with an open mind -- hoping to be converted, perhaps, or at the very least thrilled or entertained. I left my Scully skepticism at the door and aspired to be more of a Mulder -- I wanted to believe. But the movie, written by series creator/guru Chris Carter and directed by series veteran Rob Bowman, displays all the insecurity associated with the conscious birth of a movie franchise. Almost twenty years ago, Star Trek: The Motion Picture suffered the same jitters. It couldn't decide whether to please Trekkies or convert new ones. It ended up failing both ways.
The X-Files smells like another such failure. If Chris Carter plans to drift away from television and embark on a movie series, he needs better scripts -- preferably written by someone other than himself -- and he needs to give the whole conspiracy thing a rest. In this movie, Mulder and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) seem so helpless in the face of this far-reaching conspiracy (I couldn't begin to tell you what it's about -- something to do with aliens and "black oil") that they hardly register as heroes. Why hasn't the government killed these two by now? Well, in this movie they do so little that the government can afford to let them live.
The charm of the TV show (at least in the better episodes I've seen) is its intimacy, its bringing weirdness right into your living room. And it wasn't the alien-conspiracy story arc that won the hearts and minds of X-philes, it was off-the-wall episodes like "Squeeze" and anything written by Darin Morgan (who should be tapped to write the next X-Files movie, if there is one). The movie comes on strong -- wide screen, big boring music by series composer Mark Snow (trying way too hard to be John Williams) -- and goes out of its way to convince you that you're not watching a glorified two-hour TV episode. But that is exactly what you're watching.
Any synopsis I could attempt is doomed to failure, because (A) I'm not supposed to give away the plot and (B) there isn't a plot to give away. I'm sorry, a series of scenes showing shadowy figures plotting is not the same as a plot. A series of scenes showing Mulder and Scully in a variety of remote locations -- that isn't a plot, either. So what's left? Certainly not excitement or, God knows, scariness. I never worried about Mulder or Scully; I knew Dave and Gillian have signed on for another season. I was more worried about Martin Landau, as an informer who talks to Mulder; such informers have as much life expectancy as red-shirted crew members on Star Trek. In all, this is the most stubbornly incomprehensible big movie since Mission: Impossible -- which was a huge hit, as this movie might also be; the American audience seems to care less and less about stories, actual narratives that can be followed and enjoyed (remember those?).
I'm not a fan of the show, but, having seen some of the better episodes, I can understand its appeal. At its best, the show is dark and techno-gothic and witty. Except for some lame jokes (in a self-conscious attempt to lighten up the proceedings for newcomers), the movie offers no wit whatsoever. It's stuffed plump with its own major-motion-picture importance, but it feels like a substandard TV episode. Chris Carter truly has become the Gene Roddenberry of the '90s -- he's begun to take his creation, and himself, so seriously that he's forgotten the goofiness and quirkiness (and genuine spookiness) that made his show a hit in the first place.'The X-Files: Fight the Future' is one big, vaguely ominous blur, in which nothing really seems to be at stake except Chris Carter's future as a movie creator -- a future that moviegoers should fight.
link directly to this review at http://www.efilmcritic.com/review.php?movie=33&reviewer=416
originally posted: 01/18/07 03:25:58
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USA
19-Jun-1998 (PG-13)
DVD: 03-Jun-2003
UK
N/A
Australia
23-Jul-1998 (M)
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