The X-Files: I Want to Believe

The X-Files: I Want to Believe

Directed by Chris Carter (PG-13)

The FBI asks Mulder and Scully to investigate a strange disappearance.

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Even at its best, The X-Files was absolute hooey, said Jan Stuart in the Los Angeles Times. Yet the TV series, which documented the paranormal adventures of FBI agents Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson), retained its largely intelligent fan base thanks to creepy plots and “compulsively watchable” melodrama. Only the first scenes of the new movie seem as smart as the show, said Wesley Morris in The Boston Globe. What follows is “less like an episode of The X-Files and more like the trashiest installment ever of Law and Order: SVU,” with a plot that incorporates gay marriage, stem-cell research, body-dismembering serial killers, and a band of Russian spies. Yes, it’s all very silly, said Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times, “but it’s also a skillful thriller, giving us just enough cutaways to a sinister laboratory to keep us fascinated.” I Want to Believe flaunts a taut plot dressed up with special effects barely worthy of a drive-in monster pic. In an era of overwrought, computer-generated blockbusters, that seems rather reassuring.