To say I was a bit disappointed in “The X-Files: I Want to Believe” is an understatement.
I’ll refrain from making wisecracks using the words from the actual title of the film, which so many reviewers have done already. (As in, “I wanted to believe this would be a good film,” etc.) But I went to see the movie on Saturday at 5 p.m. and I was struck by how empty the theater was.
I mean, this was opening weekend for a major release that had been widely anticipated. Hell, the showing of “The Dark Knight” I went to, at 11 a.m. on opening day when most people are supposedly at work, was at least 10 times more crowded than the sparse audience on this Saturday afternoon. If there were 15 people in the entire theater, it was a lot.
I was not sure whether I was just lucky, whether maybe most people chose to wait until Saturday night, or that the largely negative reviews were already putting a dent in the film’s box office. Even the coming attractions were unappealing, led by the upcoming remake of “Death Race 2000.” All the films teased before the movie looked ultraviolent and not very enticing.
So I was already in a disgruntled mood by the time the familiar Mark Snow theme whistled out from the speakers.
After it was all over, I thought about the problems I had with the film, and the biggest one boiled down to this: That sense of FUN that characterized the very best episodes of the television series was completely absent here.
This is a dark, grim, serious and at times depressing story that has none of the levity, the wit, the enjoyable byplay of the characters that made the TV show such a pleasure to tune in to week after week.
And why the hell did they choose to go with THIS particular story? I mean, the show has been off the air for six years. These are supposedly professionals who are behind the creative process. You’re telling me they could not have come up with a better story? Something that summoned up the reasons why we loved the show so dearly when it was in its prime?
What about taking an approach that initially pokes fun at all the crazy shit Mulder and Scully went through (like, maybe Mulder has now become regular fodder for the National Enquirer) and then have it turn out to be a really creepy tale that involves at least either UFOs or some sort of monster? A story that gives us the humor and the fun of watching David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson shine their flashlights into the darkness as they did all those years ago?
I cannot figure out what Chris Carter and company were thinking. But this is now two crappy movies in a row (albeit 10 years apart) for this franchise. I have to believe that this will be the end. I can’t imagine there will be another film, because I can’t see this movie being in theaters for very long.
It’s a shame, because this could have been the launch of a new series of adventures like the “Star Trek” films with the original crew. Duchovny and Anderson both look incredible, so they clearly could have gone on doing this for years, and it could have reignited interest in “The X Files” for a new generation.
If only they had come up with a good story.