The TranseX-Files

Most of the reviews of The X-Files: I Want To Believe have decided that it is on a par with a low quality standalone episode of the series, stretched needlessly to feature length. What intrigues me about this is that film reviewers tend not to be all that TV literate, and so I wonder if they really spent that much time exhaustively watching The X-Files. This film turns out to be something a little odder than this glib assessment; it is a mixture of paranormal investigation and Before Sunset.

What we get is Mulder and Scully acting like an old married couple, bickering when an old flame re-enters their lives. They have moved on, her to successful doctoring, him to wild man in the woods giving Grizzly Adams a run for his money in the shaggy beard stakes. The old flame returns, in this case the FBI needing their help on a paranormal case, and their cosy status quo is threatened. It becomes a weird relationship drama, showing us a how these characters have grown (or not) in the intervening ten years, throwing up new conflicts, weird work related jealousies and old reminiscences. … read on …