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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #16808 in DVD
• Released on: 2008-11-24
• Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
• Format: PAL
• Number of discs: 1

Amazon.co.uk Review
The feature film The X-Files: I Want to Believe is a satisfying if unspectacular installment in the X-Files series, taking place an unspecified time after the show's nine-year television run. Former agent Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) is now a doctor, while Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) is being hunted by his former agency and living in seclusion. He and Scully are summoned back by a case involving a missing agent and a former priest (Billy Connolly) who claims to be able to see clues to the agent's whereabouts psychically, though his initial search turns up only a severed limb.

Don't expect the usual cast of characters; the FBI has completely turned over (except for the George W. Bush portrait), and the only reason Scully and Mulder are back is because agent Dakota Whitney (Amanda Peet) remembers his success on similar cases involving the inexplicable. Don't expect the same rogues' gallery either; unlike the previous X-Files feature film, which was inextricably linked to the series' convoluted mythology arc (and served as a bridge between the fifth and sixth seasons), I Want to Believe is a stand-alone piece that makes use of the series' roots in horror/sci-fi and moody Vancouver, B.C., locales. Also unlike the previous film, which was almost self-consciously shot for the big screen, this film is on a smaller scale, like a double-length episode of the series. But it's still a good reminder of the creepy vibe that hooked fans for years. And the relationship between Mulder and Scully? It seems to have resumed pretty much where it left off, at least when you take into account the long period of separation. But stick around for the end-credit sequence to take in all the possibilities for the future. --David Horiuchi, Amazon.com

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Customer Reviews

Not a movie just a feature length episode
Mulder and Scully return in this disappointing big screen tale.We find that Scully is now working as a doctor and is visited by agent Whitney (Amanda Peet) to find Mulder and help assist a search for a missing agent.

Enter Mulder with a ridiculous beard in a vain attempt to make it look as if he has lived in isolation. Not only that he spends the first quarter of the movie walking around like a hobo. I would have thought that the FBI would have told him to clean up his act. Only Mulder it seems has the expertise to investigate this tedious case rendering all other agents useless and also Scully spends most of the movie trying to talk him away from the case. This despite the fact it was she who asked him in the first place.

To me the x files worked because it dealt with the incredible fantastical stories.And the excellent interplay between Mulder and Scully. The fact that Scully is no longer in the FBI destroys it for me; she is on the outside looking in. And her and Duchovnys acting are average and at times Scully seems to overact almost trying to breathe life into the film.

And the supporting cast are weak Xzibit another rapper appearing to act spends the movie rubbishing the psychic links from Billy Connolly. One phone exchange between Scully and him sums up the movie, despite a dead agent and escaped killer on the loose he appears to have lost interest in the case and does not know where Mulder is. And in a vain attempt to refresh a struggling plot Skinner is introduced to assist. Billy Connolly feels tacked on and the whole movie just felt disjointed broken with a weak plot leading to gruesome experiments.

That being said at least the scenery is beautifully shot snowy landscapes, which give the movie a haunted look but it's all wasted on a weak plot with a poor supporting cast and bored expressions from Scully and Mulder.I even wonder if they wanted to appear in this movie at all. Maybe an extension of the plot in the first movie which was much better would have been stronger than this weak effort. X files fans may still like it at least for the pairing of Scully and Mulder again.

I Want To Be Sick...
I completely enjoyed the 1998 "X-Files" with the alien theme and the cinematography was inspiring. Mulder and Scully carried their relationship well throughout that film (even though Scully was unconscious towards the end). This film plays more like an extended TV plot, albeit with some excessively grotesque and disgusting themes and visuals. An agent goes missing so a former priest `who has a sixth sense' is brought in to help solve the matter. Why the priest had to come from a colony of sex offenders is beyond me and why one of the first clues is a severed arm was unusual, but that `type' of dark theme continues. Without giving too much away, there is far less spookiness and much more creepiness than before. Some of the numerous scenes with severed limbs for "specific" purposes are downright nauseating. I'll stop there with that, but by the last portion of the film, one realizes that this might not be alien-like or psychic at all, which is what the "X-Files" has always been about for me. Scully and Mulder do have the same good chemistry that teeters back and forth and the acting (Amanda Peet is intense and Billy Connolly as the priest is convincing) is top rate, but the cinematography is elsewhere. Instead of the grand view of `awesomeness' we are used to, the scenes seem shot for the small screen. The ending is a bit too pat and satisfying to be believable, but you DO want to believe. That's why you can be assured that there is another "X-Files" movie in the future.

A believer and a sceptic
As my title suggests I'm in two minds about this film, if you consider the pacing, narrative, special effects and the overall purpose of the film, it isn't very good but I do appreciate its themes and the cinematography and the overall atmosphere that is created.

Carter never liked to do what was expected of him, he tended to follow his own intuitions and it worked for the series making them fresh, interesting and utterly compelling, allowing them to run for so long and have such a devoted fan base. I'm one of those fans, I love the series and appreciated where it was left in the last episode; the date was set, the invasion inevitable, the FBI was overrun with alien agents and our two heroes were on the run. The series was driven by more than just Scully's devoted faith in science and Mulder's desperate belief in the paranormal it was also about the escalation of unstoppable forces and unknowable entities, religion played a massive part in the complex mythology as well. What that last episode seemed to say quite poignantly was that you can seek the truth but you can't stop the inevitable though what you can do is put faith in the unknowable, in forces greater than yourself. With this in mind what's been done with the film is hard to justify. It carries along this sentiment, but it doesn't develop it. The film by turns stagnates and goes back on itself.

The film begins with Mulder in hiding and Scully working at a hospital, their living together, but when an agent goes missing rather strangely the FBI, that's populated as I've said by vicious alien agents decide they need Mulders help, the man that they so wanted destroyed.

This Mulder we're presented with seems to have reverted back three series, ignoring the closure he received in the aptly named `closure' he is looking for his sister again, Scully even accused him at one point that every thing he is doing is because of her, a line very similar to this was used in the first series, it has no place here, it's utterly irrelevant. Maybe Carter is trying to say something, or else he is hoping to give perspective viewers of the series a key motivation of Mulder's.

Also although Mulder and Scully's relationship is nicely developed in some senses; their actively together and they share some moving conversations about William (their son, which they were forced to give away) and in particular an end scene "I think it's the darkness that always finds us", in many ways this also goes back about three series, from the seventh series Mulder and Scully's beliefs had started to align this sees them sharing arguments similar to those in the first few series, with Scully refusing to acknowledge anything supernatural without scientific proof and Mulder being the unreasoning man we knew before he laid down the troubles he had accumulated over him sisters disappearance. But Duchovny and Anderson continue to have great chemistry.

The film takes the format of a supernatural thriller; it is successful in being tense. But it's in no way mysterious as the villains are clearly shown. The cinematography of the desolate snow filled spaces is compelling and the dank interiors are well shot. But the pacing is patchy at best. Scully's scenes concerning a difficult patient are disruptive to the narrative flow although they do lend support to the importance of faith.

This film doesn't feel as if it has been made for fans, but to entice a whole new generation to the series, this is probably why it doesn't develop the mythology. From a marketing point of view and looking at the script this doesn't make sense, the themes aren't easily unearthed especially if you haven't seen the series. In fact the whole narrative has the feel of an overly long weaker than average episode of the series, something that isn't going to garner much interest from cinema goers. Carter excelled at weaving action packed mythology episodes of the likes of `713' and `Patient X' with brilliantly entertaining stand alones like `Triangle' and `Fight Club' and this isn't a great way to end the saga, yes it does mix science, paranormal and religious aspects but the paranormal comes in the form of a tortured physic, played by an unexpectedly good Billy Connolly, this doesn't incite the magnitude I was hoping for, the subject has been covered many times in series with better scripts driving it. In this it's simply used to detect the movements of a crazy group of scientist's performing outrageous experiments with stem cell surgery. I just think if your not going to put the effort into creating a great script, that develops and enhances the series, don't bother. Though I was rather excited by the strange undulating inky patterns in the background of the credits, they seemed evocative of black oil and I thought maybe there was more to the film than meets the eye, that Carter had something else planned, but it's very likely that another film will be made and people have convinced me that it was just snow. But I will still watch this as part of a series that I love as it's a good if not entirely relevant film.