"One Man Alone Cannot Fight the Future..."

So I’m an X-Files junkie. I love the show, the movie (still waiting for the second one), and I’ve got a soundtrack for the show too. The X-Files is just so wonderful and captivating, and I’m always just dying to see what happens next (well I’m not really dying to see what happens so much, I’ve seen every episode so I know what’s going to happen, but beside the point…)

I never really thought much of the show before I started watching it. I just thought it was that weird show about aliens running around. But the X-Files is so much more. It’s about the plight of two FBI agents who are trying to find out the truth behind their own shady government. Agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully are assigned to the X-Files, where they investigate cases about such things as UFOs and alien abductions. Mulder is the believer, and Scully is the skeptic. Mulder believes his sister was abducted by aliens when they were children, and has since then tried to find out the truth. He is much more open to extreme possibilities, and his theories often seem outrageous. Scully is a doctor, and instead of turning to the paranormal every time she sees something strange, she goes for a more scientific explanation. The two are complete opposites, but they work well together and have been friends for many years, since their partnership began about 5 years ago.

Agents Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) are working to find a bomb in Texas after being pulled from the X-Files. All their files and their office were burnt, so now they are stuck on bomb duty. However, they are not patrolling the building that got the bomb threat; they’re stuck at the building across the street. After Mulder stumbles across the bomb in a soda machine, the agents work quickly to evacuate the building. Against his better judgment, Mulder leaves the head agent, Michaud, behind because he says he can dismantle the bomb easily. But instead of disarming the bomb, he calmly sits before it, and dies willingly when the bomb explodes. Mulder is soon after approached by a man named Alvin Kurtzweil (Martin Landau) who suggests that maybe the intended target had been the building Mulder and Scully were in all along. He also claims to have been friends with Mulder’s father. Realizing from Kurtzweil’s story that there may be an alien virus located in Texas, Mulder and Scully investigate further, discovering crop fields infected with the alien virus and hordes of bees prepared to carry the virus. The agents butt heads over the possibility that this virus is alien, and Scully finds she doesn’t want to spend her life this way. She hands in her resignation, but is then stung by one of the bees which had been hiding in her collar. She is whisked away by some government agents and Mulder must try to find her before it’s too late, with the help of Kurtzweil and the Well Manicured Man (John Neville), whom Mulder is not all that sure he can trust.

Through all this, there manages to be some wonderful character development. There has always been some sexual tension between Mulder and Scully, and that is addressed during the movie (I’m not going to spoil anything). The two are also faced with the realization that maybe they don’t want to work on the X-Files anymore, and working on them has taken so much away from their lives. We also see some characters from the TV show, like Assistant Director Walter Skinner (Mitch Pileggi), Cigarette Smoking Man (William B. Davis), and the Well Manicured Man.

The actors do an amazing job during this film. David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson are superb as our two favorite FBI agents, and you really feel for their characters. When Mulder and Scully are discussing what they mean to each other, you can see the emotions they are feeling and it is truly fantastic. These two really bring the characters to life. Landau as Kurtzweil is another great performance, and he makes the character’s excitement about the information he shares with Mulder entirely believable. These three are the main characters of the movie, I’d say, but William B. Davis also gives a wonderful performance as the Cigarette Smoking Man. He is obviously a cold, seemingly careless person, and Davis does a great job expressing that.

The locations chosen for this movie are great too. We see crop fields, icy Antarctica, and even deserts. And when Mulder is searching for Scully in underground Antarctica, the surroundings are chilling and amazing. The glimpse of the massive spacecraft we also see is wonderfully done, and I have never seen a UFO look so real. Then again, was it a UFO…?

This film has suspense, and a hell of a lot of it. There are also some great action sequences, and the shots of things blowing up (don’t want to spoil what exactly the things are that blow up) are realistic and breathtaking. The X-Files on the big screen works, let me tell you.

It’s been claimed that even someone who has never seen The X-Files TV show will be able to understand the movie. I personally cannot say if this is true or not, because I had seen a lot of the episodes before I saw the movie. I think everything is explained really well, though, and I’m sure you will be able to understand what’s going on. I would recommend this to anyone, because it is truly a fantastic movie that is a pleasure to watch.