Andy's Archive: The X-Files (1998)

20th Century Fox

As a movie, there's technically nothing wrong with The X-Files. The special effects used for the aliens are menacing and much better than the typical over-sized noggins and big eyed grey aliens that occasionally appear on the television series. Duchovny and Anderson play their roles effectively, and just like the series, their moments together are the highlights of the film. Several secondary characters appeared as well, but just enough to not confuse someone who seldom watched the series. Another outstanding part of the movie is when a building in downtown Dallas blows up and it looks very convincing. The fact that they used very little CGI and more practical effects to pull off that stunt makes me miss the way they used to create movie effects. Now it would be all CGI, which runs the risk of looking artificial. All the pieces of a great movie are in place- music, lighting, editing, the works.

For someone who hadn't watched The X-Files before, they actually used just enough key plot points for the series so they wouldn't confuse anyone not familiar with the series. Mulder's missing sister is mentioned briefly, but they don't spend much time on it because it's not the focus of the movie's plot. Rather, they do mention Mulder is a victim of a government conspiracy, and they show why that is. The FBI places blame on Mulder and Scully for discovering a bomb inside of a building, which five people lost their lives when it exploded, so Mulder goes on a quest to find out why that happened. There are bees, angry aliens, black oil, and shady government agents along the way, which offers a wider scope than the series does. They did pull off quite a lot for a television series on a weekly basis, but never stuff like exploding buildings.

Where I think it might fail is because it's a movie that happened between seasons of a television series, it has to entertain current fans and "sell" new fans on the series. It seems to walk too fine of a line and possibly does neither. As a fan, its nice to see Mulder and Scully get a large scale adventure on a big screen like this, but the series never featured giant alien spaceships like the movie does. I think that's a bit of a "Hollywood ending" that they had to do, so it would seem as large as the movies its competing with for summer movie revenue. As for new viewers who may see the movie and know nothing about the series, its a hard sell to get someone to pay money to see movie that follows five seasons of plot. Its often hard to even jump in mid-season and try out a series. I think that's why it was best that Chris Carter left out a lot of secondary characters and stream-lined the plot down to just a conspiracy thriller. Making a movie is always a gamble, since many fail that should be hit movies, only they become cult favorites. Some are a box office success, but get terrible reviews, and then fall into obscurity. Many are seen because people just want to see an actor they love or because someone is "hot." The X-Files had a huge uphill battle right out of the gate, and while I think it was a success as a movie, Fox had to take a huge gamble on producing a movie like this. They had to hope people would be willing to spend their money on a series they can watch for free on tv, and then would be willing to continue to watch that series when it premiered again months later.