Bad, Bad X-Files, Or, I Want To Believe I Didn't Actually Pay Good Money For This

Girl Kid is at work and Boy Kid is off playing nerdy games with friends, and you know how it goes, I was in the mood for a movie—nothing too elevating or which might make me think too hard, and yet also something that the spawn would not grumble at me for seeing without them. I was on the prowl for Big Stupid Fun, and what was available at the right time you say? The X-Files, I Want To Believe.

I admit it, I was never an X-Files groupie, and I barely remember the premise of the original television show. I knows there was a story line involving a Smoking Man and a couple of FBI agents with the hots for each other and some aliens and stuff. I remember that the girl agent Scully, like a good little enabling female, was always gamely trying to keep the seriously gullible boy agent Mulder from going off the deep end, but then he always turned out to be right—goopy space critters with x-ray vision were always trying to abduct bohunks off Texas highways, presumably to complete their "Universe's Most Idiotic Life Forms" collection. I know the show was on the air for approximately 108 years, and I would hope that fat residual checks and DVD sales have ensured that the principle actors never have to work again. After seeing this movie, I really wish they had stayed at home and pounded back some more mojitos or whatever, you know?

So, based on my slim understanding of what this movie might be about, and all on my lonesome and looking for fun, I motored off in my completely uncool Kia Spectra in reasonable expectation of cinematic thrills, dark hallways, spooky bad guys and rip snorting sexual tension, middle-aged style. (I mean, David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson are getting on in years, you know? Let's see...Wiki Wiki...yeah, Old David is turing 48 on Thursday and Gillian is.....damn, she turns 38 on Saturday. Crap, she must have been like 12 when the X-Files television show began. Sheesh. Well, both of them still look pretty good. Whatever.)

I'm not even going to attempt to tell you what this movie is about, because I'm fairly sure the film makers themselves couldn't explain to to you with the aid of a translator, an Albanian donkey and a Powerpoint presentation. I can tell you that this clunker is a very, very boring movie, and the "I Want to Believe" in the title doesn't mean aliens, it means religion. Seriously, I've been pestered by Jehovah's Witnesses who talked about God less. Also, and if you were a fan of the show you probably already know this so I won't be messing anything up by revealing it here, apparently Mulder and Scully had a kid at one point. They aren't married, and they don't live together in the remote farmland newspaper-clipping-filled cabin on the outskirts of Burnaby B.C., (Mulder seems have turned into one of those sad old men who collects newspapers), but there must have been some breeding action going on in the back story and the kid got mislaid or died or was added to Blogthorth The Invincible's collection or something, thereby allowing our leads to blather on some more on the nature of the almighty and their relationship with each other. Ugh.

Scottish comedian and Rod Stewart Wannabe Billy Connolly (have you seen that guy's hair?) plays a pedophile psychic who may or may not be a bad guy or perhaps is a messenger from God, the script is never really very clear on this point. Pert and usually watchable FBI newbie Amanda Peet brings in Mulder as a consultant to suss out if Billy is really having visions or is just a crank, and the obvious conclusion that he might know where the bodies are hiding is because he killed them himself only passingly occurs to the FBI, as played by Pimp My Ride's Xzibit. I mean, I know the FBI has gotten a bad rap of late, but suspecting the guy who first leads you to the corpse is just common sense, bleeding eyes or not. There's also a b-story involving a dying kid, and apparently in the imaginary country this movie takes place in, stem cell therapy is available to the general public, because I'm pretty sure it is not allowed yet here in the Good, Ole Puritanical US of A. Also, isn't West Virginia, the supposed location, a southern state? Do they really get six feet of snow there? I know the movie was really filmed in and around Vancouver, because 1), I grew up there, and 2), even though the license plates are sort of spray painted over, in at least one shot you can clearly see "British Columbia" embossed into the metal. Actually, even Vancouver doesn't get that much snow, so they must have had some shipped in for visual effect. There's also some stuff about organ stealing bad guys, and the plot is such a snooze-fest that the villans are Russian. Come on Chris Carter, Russian bad guys were old news even back when Die Hard was made, couldn't you think of something more original?

In conclusion, The X-Files, I Want To Believe manages to be stupid, gross, boring, tedious, proselytizing, confusing and dumb all at the same time, which is grounds for a refund, if you ask me. (Yes, I know "stupid" and "dumb" are the same thing, but I'm telling you, it really warrants mentioning twice.) In the making of this movie, did not one grip, extra, script supervisor or second unit director say, "Hey, um, guys? This movie sucks rancid camel balls, you know? Maybe it needs a re-write." I'm really, really surprised David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson agreed to even enunciate some of the more ridiculous lines, although I'm pretty sure I caught Ms. Gillian rolling her eyes just a tiny bit after one particularly awful pronouncement. Dear Zeus, what a bad flick. I'll happily sit through a lot of crap as long at there are at least some funny bits, some man candy or at least big explodies periodically, (just for you dead reader, just for you), but this one really made me mad. What a waste of human life, and by that I mean my own. Go see a Miley Cyrus movie or something instead, it would seem like high art by comparison. I'm sure Miley, who seems to be taking over the world one lunchbox at a time, is available at some entertainment venue near you right now. Speaking of which, Billy Ray Cyrus must have given the Devil a beejer or seven, if you know what I mean. Seriously, the dude got away with that mullet and a had a hit song in the 90's and now the billion dollar Hannah Montana franchise is his daughter? The man must have a pillow permanently adhered to his knees is all I'm sayin'.

I reiterate in all sincerity and in regard for your mental health, save yourselves the time, money and brain cells citizens, and avoid The X-Files, I Want to Believe like the plague that it is.

Love, Your Mistress