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The New York Times
FILM REVIEW; In the Dark, 'X' Resembles a Conspiracy'
Conspiracy theorists, consider this: What if the hush-hush atmosphere and Internet mania surrounding the first "X-Files" feature film were part of a giant plot to hide the uneventfulness of one more summertime sci-fi fizzle? It's as possible as much of what "The X-Files" has to offer. If devotees of the television series come to the film with enough baggage for a six-week safari, perhaps they can deepen the experience of watching a middling, unfocused action-adventure with brand-name appeal. But there's a catch: this film isn't tailor-made for true X-fanatics, because the material has been so broadened to accommodate the uninitiated. Trust no one who dreams up an action sequence in Antarctica for the big screen. No, no and you must be joking. Those are the answers to the first three questions that the prospect of an "X-Files" movie raises: Do Scully and Mulder get extracurricular while hunting extraterrestrials? Do they solve all the series's outstanding mysteries? Will there be a sequel? Conspiracy theorists, consider this: What if the hush-hush atmosphere and Internet mania surrounding the first "X-Files" feature film were part of a giant plot to hide the uneventfulness of one more summertime sci-fi fizzle? It's as possible as much of what "The X-Files" has to offer. If devotees of the television series come to the film with enough baggage for a six-week safari, perhaps they can deepen the experience of watching a middling, unfocused action-adventure with brand-name appeal. But there's a catch: this film isn't tailor-made for true X-fanatics, because the material has been so broadened to accommodate the uninitiated. Trust no one who dreams up an action sequence in Antarctica for the big screen. No, no and you must be joking. Those are the answers to the first three questions that the prospect of an "X-Files" movie raises: Do Scully and Mulder get extracurricular while hunting extraterrestrials? Do they solve all the series's outstanding mysteries? Will there be a sequel? The movie teasingly offers the prospect of big developments in the television X-plot, but all it really does is create a vague omnibus format for future movie spinoffs. That may make it a crossover hit quicker than you can say Trekkie, but a lot of the show's otherworldly intensity has been lost in the process. Also, "The Truman Show" built a better mousetrap when it comes to paranoid fantasies this season. The cult fascination of "The X-Files" may itself be more remarkable than the material anyhow. Reams may be E-mailed about this film's tiniest nuances, but tiny they remain. (This week's Newsweek notes that Scully's crucifix is "a small gold pendant symbolizing her faith in God.") Meanwhile, the movie may raise more questions than it meant to when it offers glimpses of alien troublemakers. Reaching for run-of-the-mill grisly horror, it winds up attributing sophisticated global-domination plans to vicious, long-clawed spacelings who are more prone to screams than schemes. Without making much connection with the end-of-season television cliffhanger, the film starts off in Ice Age Texas, where aliens lurk in wait for Early Man. Thirty-seven thousand years later, Texas has heated up, but the aliens' modus operandi hasn't much changed. A nicely diabolical early scene shows a little boy savaged by the invasive virus nicknamed the black oil. Typically, as it works to cover too many bases, the film mentions the virus again but never follows through on one of its best special-effects tricks. Then it's off to Dallas, where two F.B.I. agents, Mulder (David Duchovny) and Scully (Gillian Anderson), trade affectionate wisecracks atop a Dallas office building. The X-file investigation into alien activity is now officially closed (as if!), so they have been newly assigned to antiterrorist vigilance. They spot the bomb, but it goes off anyway, shearing off half of a Government building. That allusion to Oklahoma City could have been the film's most shameless or daring aspect, but proves to be neither. The film avoids real political conspiracies in favor of a pie-in-the-sky thesis that the building was destroyed to hide evidence of alien activity, and that aliens have subverted the Federal Emergency Management Agency. At least it's also jokey enough to wink at this notion, make fun of the stars' somber manner ("Y'all look like door-to-door salesmen"), recall that Mulder is nicknamed Spooky and let him happen to urinate on an "Independence Day" poster in a dark alley. As written by Chris Carter, the heart of "The X-Files," from a story he wrote with Frank Spotnitz, and directed by Rob Bowman, who has done many episodes of the series, the new film strains to involve as many familiar elements as possible. So a number of series fixtures (like the trio called the Lone Gunmen) make minor appearances, while Martin Landau, Blythe Danner and Armin Mueller-Stahl establish new characters. (Mr. Mueller-Stahl's German mastermind, advocating the strangest of appeasement policies, is the most intriguing of these.) Bees and cornstalks figure peculiarly in the story. The movie also appropriates a bit of "Alien" for its ideas about space-monster propagation. And thank a product tie-in for automobiles for the specious scene that shows off a car. But the touch of X-iness that will matter most to both diehards and neophytes is the film's promise of heightened conspiratorial activity between Scully and Mulder. And here's where it does the most mischievous teasing, since the story's big Antarctic spectacle still seems warmer than the not-quite-love-affair. The film contrives a fairly strangled declaration of fondness from Mulder, a near-clinch and a wild idea of how to get a heroine out of her clothes. This last episode, unfolding in a huge set that resembles a giant carburetor, doesn't actually glimpse Scully in the nude or goad Mulder into anything more daring than a Sir Walter Raleigh imitation. But as on-the-job rescue efforts go, it does qualify as a fetishist's delight. Though both stars are sometimes eclipsed when the film strains for big action episodes, Mr. Duchovny sustains enough cool, deadpan intellect and suppressed passion to give the story a center. Ms. Armstrong has the harsher, more restrictive role, but she plays it with familiar hardboiled glamour. All the actors are more at ease with either bantering dialogue or X-ish hyperbole ("like nothing we've ever seen before!") than with the film's more self-important touches. Like the movie's slogan, "fight the future," which comes from this exchange: "What has he seen? Of the whole he has seen but pieces." "He is but one man. One man cannot fight . . . the future." "The X-Files" is rated PG-13 (Parents strongly cautioned). It includes profanity, grisly corpses, ugly violence and the suggestion of nudity. THE X-FILES Directed by Rob Bowman; written by Chris Carter, based on a story by Mr. Carter and Frank Spotnitz; director of photography, Ward Russell; edited by Stephen Mark; music by Mark Snow; production designer, Christopher Nowak; produced by Mr. Carter and Daniel Sackheim; executive producer, Lata Ryan; co-producer, Mr. Spotnitz; released by 20th Century Fox. Running time: 115 minutes. This film is rated PG-13.
Correction: June 20, 1998, Saturday Because of an editing error, a film review in Weekend yesterday about "The X Files" misstated the surname of the starring actress at one point. She is Gillian Anderson, as noted earlier in the review, not Armstrong.
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