After all these many years since the end of the series and the last movie, why would you care or even want to go see this latest X-Files movie? Lord knows it’s not because of David Duchovny’s screen presence. Nor is it that you’ll finaly understand all the ins and outs of the conspiracy back story. This is very much a “monster of the week” story. Nor does the movie take advantage of it’s presence on the Big Screen in any significant way. But I still highly recommend seeing this latest X-Files movie because the script is good. Very Good.
*Spoilers ahead*
This X-Files movie starts out with the abduction of woman FBI agent, and later we find out she’s just the latest in a string of abductions. The twist in the case is that an excommunicated priest has been having “visions” about the abductions. Fox Mulder and Dana Scully are of course long gone, disgracefully kicked out of the FBI. But the agent in charge, a Ms. Dakota Whitney, begs them to come back and evaluate the case and in particular determine if the ex-priest, a Father Joe, is a fraud or not.
Mulder and Scully aren’t exactly welcomed back to the FBI and there are many agents who think that they are on a wild goose chase with Father Joe.
But amazingly enough, he manages to lead them to various body parts buried in a field of ice that have connections to the missing women. But how? How does he know? He is frustratingly non-specific about his abilities and his claims.
Father Joe, having committed heinous crimes in the past, doesn’t win anyone’s trust. And Dana Sculley, a troubled Catholic herself is especially skeptical and challenging of Father Joe.
But twice during the course of the investigation, Father Joe looks straight into her eyes and tells her something. When challenged about it, he claims to not know why he said the things he said. The first thing he told her was “Don’t give up.” which she interprets as advice to not give up on a terminally ill child she is trying to save at the hospital where she works. And as it turns out, her continued research into treatment options causes her to run across some obscure medical research that turns out to create a big breakthrough in the case. The second time Father Joe speaks to her, he quotes a particular chapter and verse from the Bible and for reason’s unknown to Sculley, those numbers cause her to make a random guess about the whereabouts of Mulder and rescue him just in time to prevent his arm from getting chopped off. These things challenge Sculley to question her faith. As a Catholic, she can’t help but wonder whether these messages are from God, coming through the disgraced priest who might just have been forgiven his sins and rewarded for his faith. Oh and by the way, Father Joe cries blood at one point, completely unexplained but quite possibly a stigmata.
Meanwhile, Mulder is convinced that there is some sort of psychic connection between the Bad Guy and Father Joe. The nature of the visions is consistent with his past experience with psychics and Father Joe’s ability to lead the FBI to hidden bodies and body parts can hardly be explained except if you believe that Father Joe can see what the Bad Guy has done.
But most of the FBI agent’s aren’t buying it. They are convinced that there is a more mundane relationship between Father Joe and the Bad Guy and in the end they find one. And this relationship is related to Father Joe’s past crimes and sins from decades ago. And although the FBI cannot connect Father Joe directly to the abductions, the charge him as an accomplice.
Which is why the subtitle for this brilliant script is “I Want To Believe.” All the key characters of the story want to believe something else and there are enough facts/coincidences/apparent miracles that they can all find something to support what they want to believe.
So go see the movie, if you haven’t already, for the cool story line and tightly woven script that takes the usual “monster of the week” formula and cranks it up another notch.