Earlier today I finally got around to watching the X-Files movie from about two years ago. I don't know why it took me so long to get around to watching it as I was a huge fan of the show for 5 or 6 years, and even after it all ended I eventually came back and watched it all on DVD later. And this movie was basically a better than average mystery of the week episode of the show, with a massive budget. But the more interesting aspect to this movie is practically an X-File on it's own.
How did this film get made?
After being stuck in development hell for 6 years, the movie finally went ahead and eventually released in 2008. The final episode of the TV show ended with a bizarre two parter on May 19th, 2002. It told the story of how Mulder was being tried for murder and ultimately sentenced to death, before fleeing the FBI and hiding out with Scully having discovered that aliens plan to colonise Earth and subjugate humanity on December 22nd, 2012. There's also some rubbish in there about the alien super soldiers infiltrating human government and more conspiracy stuff like that. So the show went out on a convoluted, hard to follow double helping of depressing conspiracy theory nonsense.
And maybe following that with a movie made sense at the time. Six years later, the X-Files was already part of TV history. A significant part, but it was over. The fuss people made over it - whether they loved it or hated it - was done. Why they chose 2008 to release a new movie is a case that it may actually take Fox Mulder to explain.
Still, the movie got made and while it did so-so in the US, it did well internationally. There may or may not be a sequel. Perhaps it's best not to. Chris Carter said that having done a one-off mystery movie, the next movie had to be about the mythology of the show. Coupled with the likely release date of late 2012 - the same time as the show's upcoming alien colonisation - I can see why he'd want to. But a movie like that would depend on even the hardcore fans still knowing the show's mythology in detail a full ten years after the show went off the air. I don't know if you can count on that - I watched the show religiously for 6 years. I later watched the entire thing on DVD. I played some - though not all - of the computer games which fleshed out the mythology a bit more. I still could not tell you exactly what the hell was happening with all if that crap when the show finished. What details I mentioned in this post came from wikipedia. I think a mythology heavy movie may be a mistake. But we'll see if it actually happens.
As for this movie itself? Entertaining, though nothing special. The two leads slip right back into the characters they spent 9 years playing on TV and the whole thing works about as well as the X-Files ever did. They have a suitable weird case involving kidnappings, psychics and fringe medical science. Oddly, the bizarre medical experiments involved are possibly the most believable mystery X-Files has had, as they are not too far beyond experiments actually carried out on dogs. They are still very far fetched, and real world medical science is still probably a couple of years to a decade off pulling the same trick off for real.
Still, the cast is good to great, and everyone involved gives it 110%. I quickly got drawn in and remembered why it was I watched these two characters every week for six years. I even cheered when Walter Skinner reappeared for his brief part in the movie. I don't know why I passed this one up in the cinema but it was a good movie for X-Files fans. I'm just still very surprised they bothered and I reckon if they try one more time to revive the franchise they'll find it's beyond salvation. Times have moved on - it's been ten years and we're all watching new things now.
And besides - for anyone who wants that kind of thing these days, I'm reliably informed that Fringe is the show of choice in today's crop of shows. If X-Files wants to be resurrected, I'm afraid it'll probably have to fight off the show it itself partially inspired to pull it off.
No comments:
Post a Comment