Susan Granger’s review of “The X-Files: I Want To Believe” (20th Century-Fox)
There are no alien abductions, no space invaders, no conspiracy theories, nothing spooky or supernatural – just Mulder (David Duchovny) and Scully (Gillian Anderson) at odds over whether a pedophile priest really has the psychic ability to solve a string of grisly murders.
A female FBI agent has gone missing in snowy West Virginia and the only ‘lead’ investigating Agent Dakota Whitney (Amanda Peet) has revolves around Father Joe (Billy Connolly), a convicted, excommunicated pedophile priest who leads them to a severed arm that’s buried in an icy field. Glowering Agent Mosley Drummy (rapper Alvin “Xzibit” Joiner) is sure the allegedly clairvoyant priest is a phony but he does seem to have an inexplicable psychic connection to what’s happening, especially when another local woman vanishes without a trace. So Dr. Dana Scully is summoned from her full-time hospital practice – she’s desperately trying to save the life of a young boy who is dying of a rare brain disease – to find her erstwhile partner, Fox Mulder, now an isolated, bitter recluse, distrustful of the Bureau where he and Scully worked for so many years.
Mulder believes in parapsychology; Scully is skeptical. So what else is new?
Writer/director Chris Carter, who created the original “X-Files” series, and his co-writer Frank Spotnitz toss in religious issues, faith, psychotic Russian entrepreneurs, even experimental stem cell research. Yet it’s basically a routine crime drama – think “C.S.I.: West Virginia” – that’s only heightened by the undeniable on-screen chemistry between David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson, neither of whom have been able to successfully parlay their TV fame into individual screen careers. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “The X-Files: I Want To Believe” is an all-too-familiar 5. Some things never change.
