'The X-Files: I Want To Believe' - Review

It’s like I Want To Believe is the most mature episode of The X-Files never aired. That’s not necessarily a knock at the long-running show—which, in it’s day, was the kookiest, scariest, most mystifying(ly good) series on TV. After all, the show was, by it’s nature, irrational, improbable, and occasionally naïve—thrilled by the possibility of truth within (normally) unbelievable situations. But time has passed, and while I won’t argue that the world is a categorically different place than it was in 2002 (when The X-Files went off the air), it seems more than appropriate that former FBI Agents Mulder and Scully have adapted to a new status quo. In I Want To Believe, it’s like Mulder and Scully grew up, and went from being characters on a sci-fi TV show to being real people with real dilemmas …who occasionally dabble in the supernatural.

An FBI Agent is missing, and a convicted pedophile (and one-time priest) claims to have a psychic connection to the case. Mulder is called in, not because the FBI trusts him, but because the psychic might, and the FBI needs to decipher the priest’s complicated connection to the missing woman. Makes sense.

The fundamental theme at the heart of The X-Files (both the series and this new movie) is the search for truth, and it’s relationship to faith. As always, both Mulder and Scully have their own personal faiths, as well as their doubts. Scully, who is now working as a doctor in a Catholic hospital, is treating a boy whose illness requires painful and extremely experimental treatments for any chance of survival. The way this compelling subplot weaves into the main story of the priest and the missing agent is mostly based on overlapping themes, but it also expertly fleshes out Scully’s complex response to the case, and her feeling towards Mulder’s involvement in it.

As for the status of Mulder and Scully’s “relationship,” I’ll leave that for you to find out, but I think it struck the perfect tone: believable, for two people who had been so emotionally intimate for so long, and for two people sometimes unwilling to give themselves up to trust. So many details remain unspoken, but that’s as it should be, because every subtle twist adds another layer to their dynamic.

For a time, the search for the missing agent (and subsequent victims), has the feel of an above-par whodunit. What is the priest’s relationship to the case, and how does he know so much? Why are these people being taken? When there is an intense foot chase between Mulder, the agent in charge of the case, and a mysterious suspect, I Want To Believe is as skilled as, say, The Dark Knight at arousing suspense. Of course it’s never quite as straightforward as this, as new evidence points the case in stranger directions. And because Mulder and Scully retain varying levels of skepticism, and as their connection to the case ebbs, the mysteries of the case compound eloquently.

Before long, with a casual pace and expert skill, I Want To Believe turns back into the kind of X-Files we want to see, where we don’t quite believe what we’re seeing, but we don’t quite not-believe it either. There’s a sinister scheme surrounding the missing people, in a Dr. Frankenstein-type development that feels genuinely invasive and creepy. But it also feels a little different from the usual, and a little more grounded than TV X-Files ever did: Mulder feels compelled to jump head-first into solving his case, not because he necessarily believes the priest, but because he believes he can save the FBI agent’s life. He’s got to have faith in the psychic, because what other choice does he have, when an innocent woman’s life is at stake?

Scully, on the other hand, thinks she wants to commit to solving problems with tangible solutions, but even she doubts her work in medicine will always yield real results. A disagreement with the hospital administration over the fate of the sick boy challenges her faith in a way that transcends religion, but at the same time alludes to it. As Scully joins Mulder in his search, these lessons take on a satisfyingly deep overtone.

Is The X-Files: I Want To Believe better than the best episodes of the series? Of course not. But I was amazed by how cleverly and subtly Chris Carter (series creator and movie director) turned the 6+ years between the series finale and the movie premier into an advantage. I feel like he brought these characters into a new realm of possibility, where the ideas of truth and doubt are bigger than the occasional, unsolicited monologue on believing in aliens or conspiracies or black goo or 6 foot tall parasites.