Let me just say that I love the X-Files. I had the pleasure of going through high school in the mid-late 90s, and growing up with the X-Files hype. Damn, I love that show. David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson WERE Mulder and Scully, and it was a shining example of good television. The X-Files made the unbelievable believable, and brought paranormal phenonmena into the mainstream social consciousness.
F*** yeah!
But X-Files 2 resembles the original X-Files that so many fell in love with only in lighter shades. The blueprint is there for a great X-Files movie, but we aren’t getting all that we might’ve hoped for.
There are two main issues here, characterization and plot.
The movie starts off good, with character motivation alive and well. Mulder is still searching for his sister. Vintage. Scully is still putting her faith in science. Vintage. One thing that I’ll say is that you can see how both Mulder and Scully (and particularly Scully) got to where they are now. It seems such natural progression for both characters. Unfortunately, where the vintage Mulder and Scully are visible, they are coloured only in lighter shades of themselves. This is, in my opinion, somewhat forced by the romantic sub-plot. What has always irked me is that Mulder and Scully lose a part of themselves and part of what makes them unique, in having a romantic relationship. The believer-skeptic motif gets cast aside and they are just two people in love, going through romantic type problems.
This brings me to the plot. There has been much said about the plot – to put it simply – it’s not very X-Filesy. It starts to set itself up quite good, it’s got mysterious kidnappers, a pedophile priest who claims to be experiencing visions, and Mulder and Scully being called back, somewhat reluctantly, into action. This is all good stuff, and in the X-Files, good stuff leads somewhere better. Not here though. After about the first 30-45 minutes, we have descended into standard serial killer fare. There is always the hope that something more will pop out of it, but there’s only glimpses. Leaving the movie, I just wonder where it *could* have gone.
To get back to my earlier point, the relationship between Mulder and Scully, whilst showing parts of what it once was, now seems tired. Their difference of opinion appears to be more about them feeling too different to one another to be together anymore, and unfortunately, less about them holding onto a polar opposite POV about the phenomenon they are up against. In fitting with the standard plotline we ended up getting, any FBI agents who fell in love a few years back would have sufficed for this movie. There was no need for Mulder and Scully. This just didn’t seem to be the story that *they* needed to be in.
Having said that, it’s not all doom and gloom. Mulder’s trademark wit is still there (in flashes), and Scully gets to tell off Xzibit, telling him to grow some balls even!! There’s a cool cameo towards the end, which X-Philes will probably be happy to see, even though it’s a bit of a shoehorn job. The lesser players, Amanda Peet and Xzibit (as the new generation of FBI agents) perform adequately, and Billy Connolly once again proves that he can act okay. There’s probably the most depth written into Connolly’s character, which is interesting to see, given the current social climate and the character he plays.
Hmm. That’s about the it, I’m afraid. When it’s all said and done, X-Files 2 is a pretty standard movie, with standard characterization and a standard plot. It’s part X-Files, and part not, and in the same way, it’s part worth seeing, and part worth not.
