The X-Files: Fight the Future Review
by Walter Frith (wfrith AT netinc DOT ca)June 30th, 1998
'The X-Files' (1998)
(Fight the Future)
A movie review by Walter Frith
Member of the 'Internet Movie Critics Association'
http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Studio/5713/index.html
Member of the 'Online Film Critics Society'
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AS A REVIEW OF THIS FILM, I FEEL IT IS IMPORTANT TO GIVE YOU AN EXPLANATION OF THE SHOW'S PROGRESS IN BETTER UNDERSTANDING THE FILM. HERE IS A RUN DOWN OF THE SERIES. ALL FIVE SEASONS ARE ANALYZED. IF YOU WATCH THE SHOW RELIGIOUSLY LIKE I DO, SKIP AHEAD TO ANOTHER OPENING PARAGRAPH LIKE THIS ONE, ALL IN CAPITAL LETTERS, THAT WILL ONLY DISCUSS THE MOVIE.
Once in a generation, you get a truly great visionary who has a knack for capturing the desires of the human imagination better than you could ever believe. Rod Serling had 'The Twilight Zone', Gene Roddenberry had 'Star Trek', and Chris Carter now has 'The X-Files'. Inspired by the early 70's t.v. series 'Kolchak: The Night Stalker' starring Darren McGavin, Carter has crafted a television series that doesn't only investigate the paranormal but it provides an examination of the human condition that borders on being a soap opera but doesn't quite cross the line because all the shows are not tied directly to each other like a soap opera usually is.
'The X-Files' chooses to make episodes that are isolated in their own stories as well as other episodes that are part of the show's overall mythology that pick up from where they last left off every several episodes or so that examines the strengths, weaknesses, morals and intelligent qualities that each character possesses is his or her own way. 'The X-Files' did not start out as a borderline soap opera. It began as a cult show that looked more experimental than progressive in its first season (1993/94). In fact, the first episode aired on the FOX network on September 10, 1993. The total scope of characters had not yet come into play as being very interesting except for the two leads, David Duchovny as FBI Special Agent Fox Mulder and Gillian Anderson as Special Agent Dana Scully. Season 2 was more progressive and ended with its most intense cliffhanger in the show's five years. It was the first of a three part series that picked up with the first and second episode of season 3 that had Mulder and Scully involved in their most explosive adventure ever to date in the series. Season 3 is the show's BEST work to date. There is more diversity among the show's tone, both humourous and dramatic as well as its usual mystique. Season 4 is the show's most ambitious time as more story developments occur with splendidly addictive results. Season 5 is sort of an enigma. It's right in the middle. Better than season 1 and 2 but inferior to season 3 and 4.
Mulder is a true believer in the paranormal and its relative ties. UFO's, extra-terrestrials, mutants and un-Earthly beings in general are Mulder's cause in life as a branch of the FBI has a category known as the x-files, cases where the only explanation (or lack of one) seems to be tied to the supernatural. Enter Scully. She is a skeptic, a medical doctor with a background in science who believes that the answers for every unexplained occurrence are there and that one just has to know where to look. Cancer, AIDS and many other diseases haven't been cured as we haven't learned where to look and that is the parallel to Scully's belief that science can explain everything or so she believes. Scully has been assigned to become Mulder's partner and he believes she is to spy on him for her superiors but as the show would progress, Scully, to this day, has her same beliefs but is the only person that Mulder ends up trusting.
The show is basically tied to five important story lines. The first is Mulder's quest to find his sister, Samantha, who was abducted from her home at the age of 8 as Mulder, at age 12, watched as a supposed alien force took his sister in the same way the little boy was taken from his mother in 'Close Encounters'. Secondly is Mulder's quest to clarify his father's name. His father was murdered by forces inside a dark network tied to the government because he could expose too much about a secret government and military project that the men involved have supposedly been negotiating with extra-terrestrials for the revolution of a new way of life on Earth. His father has been shown in flashbacks from time to time as being involved in government experiments and the collection of data during the Cold War. These factors have included a mysterious alien entity in the form of a mysterious black oil that can infiltrate the human body and jump from person to person and is the main focus of a race between the United States and Russia to find a vaccine for it in fighting its effects that has been seen in the last three seasons of the five years the show has been on the air. Thirdly is the infiltration on society of a strange specimen of bees that appear to carry small pox, a disease thought to be almost eradicated by modern medicine but perhaps it will make a comeback for some sinister purpose. Fourth, Fox Mulder and his sister Samantha seem to be the focus of a reoccurring question. Who is their father?
Fifth is the progression of Scully's health. She was abducted by a strange force, some believe by aliens and some believe by the government and some believe both that later caused her to develop cancer and her fight against its progression that seems to be arrested for the moment that occurred at the beginning of season five. Season five, which just ended on May 17, 1998 was the most "teasing" season of the series as many of the regular characters weren't seen as often as they were in the other four seasons and for good reason. EVERYONE appears to be in the movie which is supposed to appeal to die hard fans of the show, such as myself and people who have never seen it. The movie is supposed to answer serious questions raised by the show over the past five seasons and the movie will be a stop sign at its conclusion that will phase in season 6 in the fall of 1998.
Mulder has had three secret sources of information that he turns to when he's stuck on a case. These people are like the deep throat character played by Hal Holbrook in 'All the President's Men'. In fact, Mulder's first informant, was named Deep Throat (Jerry Hardin), and he was murdered by conspiring forces at the end of season 1 and at the beginning of season 4, Mulder's other informant, Mr. X (Steven Williams) was likewise murdered by what we assume are the same people. Mulder's current source of information is from a UN employee named Marita Covarrubias (Laurie Holden). She is a woman who is the least trustworthy of all of Mulder's informants.
Other reoccurring characters on the show are the Lone Gunmen. They are Byers (Bruce Harwood), Langly (Dean Haglund) and Frohike (Tom Braidwood). These men are often the show's comic relief but are serious and important enough to help Mulder with his quest for unexplained scientific and technical explanations he needs in solving a case. The Lone Gunmen work out of a lab that also serves as their apartment where they have computers and other high tech gadgets for analyzing and explaining certain types of data fed to them.
There is Alex Krycek (Nicholas Lea). Krycek started off as what looked like an ally to Mulder but later we learned that Krycek was a double agent, working for the Cigarette Smoking Man and his consortium as well as for the Russians although Krycek's birthplace has never been established. He is one of the show's most interesting characters who hasn't been used as much as I would like to have seen.
There was the introduction in season 5 of Special Agent Spender (Chris Owens). His character has not yet been utilized enough to really comment on but more should be explained about him in season 6 and should involve a relationship between him and the Cigarette Smoking Man. Or maybe not.
Last but certainly not least is Mulder and Scully's boss, Assistant Director of the FBI, Walter Skinner (Mitch Pileggi) who is the most underplayed character in the series. Very little has been explained about Skinner in the four years the show has been on. Skinner is a former Marine and Vietnam veteran who seems to hiding a secret pain in life. Skinner never smiles and when he tries to, it doesn't last long and is usually a smile reminding him of a happier time in his life or is a smile that reminds him of something strange and not something funny. He is a somewhat sympathetic character that you like, hoping he will always remain as a good guy but Chris Carter has portrayed him as uncertain more than any other character.
Mulder and Scully are monitored by the government within the government, a consortium of men of considerable experience in their work who all look to be in their 50's and 60's. There is the 1st Elder (Don S. Williams), who seems to be the leader, the Well Manicured Man (John Neville), who appears to be an under boss of authority and the infamous Cigarette Smoking Man (William B. Davis) who is the most focused upon character of the three men and the show's chief bad guy and one of the most intelligently portrayed villains in the history of television or the movies. If you are having trouble picturing these men, think of a dark room or dark outside scenario, where men, dressed in suits, plan their next move that will affect the lives of millions. They're the sort of men believed by many to have killed JFK, RFK and Martin Luther King, Jr. In fact, in season 4, an episode called 'Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man' is one of the series best episodes as its alternative presentation of ideas does in fact imply and it shows that the Cigarette Smoking Man killed JFK and Martin Luther King, Jr.
Throughout the show, Mulder and Scully have each lost a parent and a sibling. Scully's father died of a heart attack in season 1 and her sister was accidentally murdered by assassins who meant to kill Scully, at the beginning of season 3. Mulder's father, as mentioned already, was murdered by conspiring government forces involving the Cigarette Smoking Man at the end of season 2 and Mulder's sister Samantha has been missing since before the series began. These losses have driven them further in living up to the old adage that for every action there can be an equally strong reaction and their experiences and bonding with one another have taken the show to progressive heights virtually unmatched by any other show. What keeps 'The X-Files' so interesting is that the relationship between Mulder and Scully hs always been kept professional an never personal. They have never been lovers and despite the desire of immature teenage female fans who watch the show but aren't really fans and can't tell you what's going on (I can't tell you how much people like this bother me), Chris Carter says that he will never do anything to rock the boat in making their relationship anything but professional. I and several of my 'X-Files' friends have vowed to stop watching the show if it ever becomes personally romantic between Mulder and Scully.
The last episode of the show before the movie is the end of season 5. Fox Mulder's work, all of the x-files, were burned in his private office at the FBI Headquarters by the Cigarette Smoking Man who first removed Samantha Mulder's file. The x-files were apparently destroyed because a link in solving them all had allegedly been found through the mind reading abilities of a 12 year old boy. Solving all of the x-files would be a threat to the consortium's planned project involving extra-terrestrials and involving the Cigarette Smoking Man..........
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..........HERE IS WHERE THE MOVIE REVIEW BEGINS
WARNING: This review contains some spoilers which I never do but it is necessary in this case to appreciate the film. Fear not. Not all is revealed!
'The X-Files' movie begins in what we know in the present day as being North Texas. It is 35,000 B.C., and a pair of what can be described most understandably as cave men, are running along a thick winter like tundra that resembles the North or South pole, probably the climate of North Texas in 35,000 B.C. before the evolution of climate change to its present day climate. They fall through a weak spot in the snow and encounter alien entities in an underground cave where the black oil is exposed to them. Skip forward to the present day. Again, it is North Texas. A group of boys are playing and one of them falls through the ground. We are to assume that its the same spot the cave men encountered as the boy who fell through finds a skull and the boy is contaminated by the black oil. There is a quick rush to quarantine the boy after a call is made by a mysterious man on the scene to the Cigarette Smoking Man.
The movie is clever in its opening scenes, as Mulder and Scully are not present right away and work their way into the story later in what would become another tie to the film's many plot points, all on a collision course with each other. When we do see Mulder and Scully, after about the first twenty minutes into the film, they are at the scene of a federal building in Dallas, Texas, where a bomb threat has been called in. Among their discussion is a phrase that tells the audience that the x-files have been shut down. After the bomb situation has resolved itself, Mulder encounters a doctor (Martin Landau), who was an old friend of Mulder's father and who knows the real purpose of the bomb scare scenario in Dallas.
The consortium introduces us to new character, a man we assume is a scientist (Armin Mueller-Stahl), who has information about a new virus related to the uncovering of the black oil in North Texas. The regular consortium members are there. The 1st Elder (Don S. Williams), The Well Manicured Man (John Neville), and, of course, the Cigarette Smoking Man (William B. Davis). We discover that not only has the government been working in control with some extra-terrestrial forces for the past fifty years, but we also learn that the consortium is working to prevent in part, a colonization of the Earth for which they have no control. This element is derived from season 5's two part story 'Patient X' and 'The Red and the Black'. We learn that the United States and Russia are working to find a vaccine that will prevent the colonization by extra terrestrials by spreading the black oil. The vaccine plays a major part in the film and progresses up to the film's conclusion where we learn the fate of the x-files in what will be the start of season 6 in the fall of 1998.
Mulder and Scully face elements that they've never been up against before as their exploits take them to the South pole for their most difficult adventure ever and although the film is an expansion of the television series, Skinner (Mitch Pileggi) and The Lone Gunmen (Bruce Harwood, Dean Haglund and Tom Braidwood) are only used briefly.
I was hoping the movie would create more depth than it ultimately did and although the creators of the movie say that you don't have to know anything about the television series to enjoy the movie, this is not entirely true. You can enjoy the movie if you've never seen the t.v. show but only about 75% of the movie will make sense. Without knowing anything about the black oil, the bees, and the consortium, audiences will have to watch repeats of the show to truly appreciate it. All in all, a good effort and certainly better than the first 'Star Trek' movie in 1979 and 'Twilight Zone---The Movie' in 1982 which failed to live up to the standards of their television pasts. 'The X-Files' movie does live up to the standards of its television past with a vision of the future which will keep true fans clued in for more.
OUT OF 5 > * * * *
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