# X Files, The (1998)

### reviewed by
Paul-Michael Agapow

    [film] "The X Files"
    (A Postview, copyright 1998 P-M Agapow)

This is how it is: everyone's favourite FBI agents are once again down on their luck, the eponymous files having been closed. But Mulder (David Duchovny) is contacted by an old friend of his father (Martin Landau) who explains that he is aware of a high level conspiracy to unleash a plague on mankind. Knowing this will at the very least explain the final season of "Space 1999", Mulder cons Scully (Gillian Anderson) into donning an awesome pair of heels and rekindling their unresolved sexual tension. Equipped with their trusty torchs, mobile phones and clothes in every imaginable shade of black, our conspiratorial duo investigate a bomb blast and a mysterious excavation site. It's not long before Scully is conveniently taken prisoner and Mulder has to trudge through snow to save her.

There's a lot to admire about "The X Files" as a TV show. It keyed into a previous unmined vein of interest in conspiracy and paranoia, paid a long overdue visit to the horror genre, managed to laugh at itself while telling some fun and well-directed stories. It's a very likeable show. This may explain why after seeing the movie there is this vague feeling of guilt that you didn't like it more.

The beginning is admirable, drawing you in with a great surtitle for a hookline: "North Texas - 35000 BC". After this creepy opening sequence, we see the two discredited agents working a case in Dallas that features a great explosion and the movie's sole point of parody (which revolves around Mulder's wooden expression). Things then get very busy with secret meetings, internal agency hearings and help crawling out of the woodpile at every turn. To be fair, it's only near the end that you realise that you are just watching a two hour episode of the TV show.

Is that so bad? Movie and TV can be very different experiences, if only due to length. "The X Files" shows a few scars gained in the move. The soundtrack blairs stridently in too many scenes. A rollcall of characters parade past the screen and then disappear. The malevolent Cancer Man gets no chance to work his evil and those paragons of geekdom, the Lone Gunmen, are on screen for a full 20 seconds. But worst of all, over a two hour period the movie is sufficiently drawn-out to let you dwell on plot intricacies. (Plot intricacies and Scully's magnificent pumps. Excuse me.) At the end of the day, the plot makes little sense. In a conspiracy the viewer should be convinced that while motives may be unknown, the action is in some light be consistent and plausible. But "The X Files" slowly but surely breaches this barrier. The unseen conspiracy cannot make sense. The actions of some characters seems to come out of a vacuum. And at the end of the movie, we are back to square one - the X Files are re-opened and conspirators and whistleblowers are at work again, with no ground gained or lost.

Hardcore X-philes will race off to see the movie immediately and probably get a decent bang-for-buck out of it. More casual fans will still enjoy it but can proceed more leisurely, maybe waiting for video (which I predict will not be long). Those who have never seen "The X Files" will have trouble understanding any of this. Conversely, the hoopla over having to know the last few episodes to understand the movie is severely overstated - a nodding acquaintance with the main characters and issues is all that is necessary. [**/ok] and unmarked helicopters on the Sid and Nancy scale.

"The X Files" Released 1998. Directed by Rob Bowman. Written by Chris Carter and Frank Spotniz. Music by Mike Oldfield and Mark Snow. Starring David Duchovny, Gillian Anderson, Martin Landau, Armin Mueller-Stahl, Blythe Danner, William B. Davis, Mitch Pileggi.

-- Paul-Michael Agapow (agapow@latcs1.oz.au) Postviews SF/F reviews & mailing-list at www.cs.latrobe.edu.au/~agapow/Postviews

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