Cinema review
Directed by Chris Carter
Starring David Duchovny, Gillian Anderson, Amanda Peet, Billy Connolly, Alvin 'Xzibit' Joiner
Release date 1 August 2008 (UK)

The X-Files may be closed, but when an FBI agent is kidnapped and the only lead is the visions of a former priest, Mulder and Scully are brought into the fold…

The new X-Files movie has been subject to a level of intense secrecy that even real intelligence agencies would probably consider extreme. You have to wonder why its creators bothered. Instead of the twist-packed walk on the weird side that you might reasonably expect after so many years, the biggest surprise about I Want to Believe is how straightforward it is. The film plays out like an extended middling episode of the show, albeit one that attempts to inject a more epic aspect to its preoccupations with faith and guilt. It’s hugely disappointing, especially when set against 1998’s impressive Fight the Future, but there are just enough nice moments to make this a watchable adventure.

For fans, nothing can detract from the big draw here – the chance just to see Mulder and Scully reunited after so long away from our screens. And in many ways, the movie succeeds in developing their relationship in subtle and genuinely affecting ways. When Scully jokingly admonishes Mulder about his “scratchy beard” it should, in theory, be horribly corny. Yet instead the scene comes across as incredibly sweet – a testament to the skill of the leads and a sign of how fond we are of these characters.

Where the movie falls down is in the X-File itself (which, considering that the X-Files has been shut down, isn’t actually an X-File at all). All the potentially exciting clues and threads of the first half of the movie head pretty much nowhere; this could well be Mulder and Scully’s most prosaic case to date. Where are the fiendish twists? Or the decent bad guys? Or crazed monsters? What’s the point in Amanda Peet and Xzibit’s blank-faced FBI agents? Why on Earth do the FBI need Mulder and Scully on board at all?

There are things to like about I Want to Believe – the atmospheric snowy vistas that help to distinguish the film from the TV show; a scattering of genuinely creepy sequences (a nasty surprise inside a cool bag, slasher-style scenes of caged victims); a surprisingly affecting performance from Billy Connolly as the guilt-ridden, vision-prone priest who develops an intriguing dynamic with Scully. But after six years away from the screen surely Chris Carter and Frank Spotnitz could have come up with something a little more, well, interesting than this?

Despite the standalone story, newcomers to the franchise are likely so struggle to see what on Earth all the fuss is about (and find themselves baffled at attempts to tie up some of the show’s loose ends). For X-philes, there’s something inherently pleasing about the nudge-nudge moments and familiar debates of science versus faith. But even die hard believers are likely to concede that there’s little particularly X-traordinary here. Keep watching during the credits for a very odd extra sequence. Matt McAllister

VERDICT: 6/10
It’s nice to see a big sci-fi movie that doesn’t simply rely on extravagant set pieces and effects to tell the story. It’s just a pity that the story in question wasn’t a little stronger than this.