The X-Files: I Want To Believe

There's something out there. That was the whole premise of The X-Files, the sci-fi series that ran for nine seasons.

FBI agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully investigated mysteries that couldn't easily be explained by CSI-like forensics. The beauty of the show was in the tension between Scully and Mulder. Scully was the scientistwho constantly searched for the rational explanation.

And it was that rationalism that sometimes saved Mulder, the conspiracy-theorist haunted by his sister's kidnapping by aliens, from going over the edge.

Some shows were stand-alone exploration of things that go bump in the night. Others were about that large maze-like government cover-up involving shadowy figures such as The Smoking Man. In the midst of all that was the relationship between Mulder and Scully, at first platonic and then something more.

Ten years ago, Chis Carter, the creator, brought the series to the big screen in a plot tied to the show. It was a movie that pushed the series ahead, answering some questions and brining up new ones.

This time, The X-Files: I Want To Believe, junks all that conspiracy stuff. Instead, this is a standard episode stretched out to an hour and some change.

If only this movie was a better episode. But it isn't.

The movie picks up years after the series left off. Mulder and Scully are no longer with the FBI, the X-Files unit having been shut down. Mulder lives in isolation, throwing pencils to the ceiling, not shaving and clipping news articles. Scully is a surgeon trying to save the life of a sick boy.

Then a federal agent goes missing, and Scully is asked to find Mulder. And just like that, Mulder and Scully are back again, fulfilling their roles as believer and skeptic, respectively.

Added to that the fact that Scully and Mulder are a couple, their tension taking on a new dimension. In the center of the action is a defrocked pedophile priest played by Billy Connolly, who is given to visions he believes are sent by God.

Well, are they or is this priest a nut? That and Frankenstein-like human experimentation are essentially the plot here. No aliens to be found and certainly no conspiracy.

That's disappointing, putting it nicely. Even for what is a stretched-out episode, this movie doesn't hold much muster.

The script is weak, and Carter doesn't even try to engender much suspense. The series could be scary when it wanted, the bogeyman jumping out at you when you least expected. The twists were real twists, and when the credits ran, you felt a little unsettled, as if all the monsters hadn't been caught.

No monsters here, and the effort to bring some meaning to the relationship between Mulder and Scully ultimately fails. The climax is unsatisfying, and the ending doesn't haunt. The movie fades as soon as the end credits come on.

Some things should be left alone.