Genre: Sci-Fi/Fantasy
Rating: UN
Release Date: 2-DEC-2008
Media Type: Blu-RayThe definitive American television series of the ’90s comes to the big screen with an anticlimactic whimper. And how could it be otherwise? Why should material so perfectly realized in one medium necessarily translate well into another? The series is crisply and thoughtfully executed in just about every detail, but the heart of its appeal lies in the elegant handling of complicated and evolving ongoing story lines, which is not something movies are especially good at. The big-screen drive for closure cramps the creative style, though it may also help nonfans get a grip on the proceedings. We do get some invigorating thrills and chills, however, and a more satisfying sense of the scale of an all-enveloping human-alien conspiracy than ever before, but there’s no more plot development here than in an average two-part season-ending. FBI black sheep Mulder and Scully have been temporarily transferred from the X-Files project to an anti-terrorist unit to investigate an Oklahoma City-style bombing. They uncover a new wrinkle in the Syndicate/Cancer Man conspiracy–basically an attempt to help one bunch of (benign?) aliens fight off another bunch who want to colonize Earth. A spectacular, ice-bound finale thrillingly staged by series-veteran director Rob Bowman offers Mulder (but not a conveniently unconscious Scully) his first clear look at a You Know What, which in some quarters qualifies as an epochal event. Martin Landau offers the agents some crucial clues, and several familiar TV faces (including the Lone Gunmen and Mitch Pileggi’s indispensable Assistant Director Skinner) turn up briefly to wink knowingly at faithful fans. –David Chute
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May 13, 2008
#1
all these people writing 5 star reviews must be ten-year olds that checked the “Im over 13 years old box” before sudmitting their review. this was an spectacular example of film-makers on every illegal drug you can think of at the same time. its an insult to the entire world and anyone with any kind of intelligence. i cant believe i had to even give this crap a star.
May 13, 2008
#2
You might want to pull up a chair, this is a long, self-interested review.
Back in the autumn ’07 I saw this p’ticular movie in a bargain bin, on sale for a dollar, and although I still remembered my loathing for the way its makers manipulated so many of us into flocking to our local multiplex, only to rip us off our ticket price, I still bought it on a “wonder if it was really that bad?” basis. And now that I’ve at last made time to see it, guess what…it’s still THAT BAD.
To think, back in the late-`90′s I spent months looking forward to this film. There was once a time, after all, when The X-Files was a big deal, and when I was in college, it was the one TV show no one ever seemed to miss. Instead of a project equal to my and so many others’ eager anticipation, we were “treated” to a movie that was terrible in every way. Filled with clichés (please, why must every on-screen bomb have those little red numbers on the front counting down the time till detonation?), this movie made an even greater muddle of already muddled conspiracy theories that by then were starting to drag down one of the most suspenseful, intelligent, and altogether cool series in broadcast history.
Although Fight The Future (yes the “X-Files Movie” actually had a name) promised to reveal all or at least much that we’d been squirming to know, this stinko actually backfired and showed that not only was the truth not out there, but The X-Files was actually a ship plowing haphazardly through choppy waters, no one at the wheel.
As we left the theater, my friend said to me, “They’re just making this stuff up as they go, aren’t they?”
“Yep, Jackie,” I replied, “they are.” (There, I used your name in a review.)
And for the first time, ladies and gentlemen, the light of Heaven shone down onto New England, and we saw the Emperor was stark naked.
Okay, kidding aside, I truly think the release of this film was when The X Files jumped the sharks and the beginning of the end to this once ice-hot TV show can be traced to this one goshawful motion picture.
Why after so long do I still feel so much antipathy for a banal movie? Because it was bad. Yes, truly bad as a stand-alone work, and much worse as a disgrace to the one-time great series. Just absolutely hideous!
May 13, 2008
#3
What a piece of garbage. What kind of cover up is this when they blow up an entire building just to destroy three alien virus infected dead bodies and those bodies weren’t even in the building so that Scully can perform her little autopsy and so that the movie can show you an awesome explosion of a building. Is this necessary??? What about those other firemen that worked together? Don’t they know something’s going on??? FEMA, a secret govenment? lol, now this is funny. Too bad for Michael Brown, our short live secret idiot president.
May 13, 2008
#4
Good movie but the box was crushed when it reached my house. Fast shipping, but the dvd was almost hanging out of the case. I give it a four, not because of it being a bad movie, but because of the quality of shipping.
May 13, 2008
#5
Feels like a toned down version of the series. The tone between Mulder and Skully (Can you think of uglier sounding names?) is friendly, boardering almost on the romantic. And come on! There are too many coincidences in story – Oh yes so they just happen to be in a place where they see two tanker trucks going past on a train and know instinctively that those are the tanker trucs they are looking for. And what about the aliens? They use human bodies to incubate and gestate at an incredibly fast rate..remind you of anything??? The only difference is that they do not have acid for blood…come on that’s a give away! “Aliens” rip off, “Independence Day” rip off. Good points? Well, someof it was shot in London so they do admit that other countries besides the US exist…but wait! It’s the US and FEMA that will create the conditions for the aliens arriving or make the vaccine. Come on! Finally, if aliens do come to earth, what sort of reception will they have with paranoic drivvel lke this being made? We are all expectingt hem to be hostile, when, it is more likely that we are judging them by our own ideas of right and wrong. The X files used to be good, despite Duchovny and Anderson being unable to act. They both speak in monotone, their gamut of emotions runs from A to A. But despite that it used to be interesting. Now it is just another weekly series that you can watch or not watch. This is an extended version of a good series gone to seed!