The X-Files: Fight the Future Review
by Jerry Saravia (faust667 AT aol DOT com)August 19th, 1999
I've only watched a couple of "X-Files" episodes, but I have to
say that I was mesmerized by their haunting power and sense of dread. Scully and Mulder were deadpan FBI agents rattled around the bleak, conspiratorial universe created by Chris Carter where aliens exist. Now comes the inevitable film version and, although it is not as bleak as the show, it is a nicely crafted, weirdly paradoxical movie that is quite a pleasure to sit through.
Of course, Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) are still on the lookout for alien conspiracies. This time, it may have something to do with the explosion of a Texas office building where black-oil virus victims are supposedly kept. In the meantime, Mulder is repeatedly visited by a flaky doctor (the superb Martin Landau) who insists that the Texas bombing was an alien cover-up. Mulder tries to convince Scully that killer bees, a black-oil virus and some Tunisian cornfields are all part of a conspiracy involving the Well-Manicured Man, the Cigarette Smoking Man, and some Syndicate overlords - the idea is that aliens have been around for thousands of years and have hidden underground oozing some deadly black oil to unintended victims!
Naturally, in a movie like this, the conspiracy theories abound with so much abandon that it is impossible to follow who or what is responsible for whom. The joy of "The X-Files" is to watch David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson play against and with each other; their scenes together, particularly a brief emotional moment where they almost kiss, are electrifying to watch. Obviously, they know their characters well enough to make us care about their plight in murky waters.
"The X-Files" has a number of terrifying moments. They include a bombing scene that has such a creepy realism, it would give the "Lethal Weapon" duo nightmares for months; the moment when an alien devours a child underground; and the apocalyptic finale (similar to "Smilla's Sense of Snow") where Mulder tries to rescue Scully from an icy cavernous fortress where numerous alien catacombs exist.
"The X-Files" doesn't make much sense and there are more plot holes than one can count, e.g., just how does Mulder escape an icy wilderness when his snowmobile is out of gas? It is still strangely compelling, thrilling, chilling, eerie, and ably acted by Duchovny and Anderson. That's more than you can expect from any recent sci-fi movies.
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