My reaction after watching it was, “Where’s the paranormal stuff? Where’s the ‘X File’?”

There was almost none other than that psychic priest played by Billy Connolly. The whole thing was going nowhere. There weren’t any suspense, spooks or mystics. Fox Mulder was running around all over the place and yet he didn’t do very much. Dana Scully was caught up in her own “segment” trying to cure a patient of hers which didn’t lead to anywhere or anything. It’s almost as if they wrote that in for her just so she could be in the movie.

And the dramatic entrance of Mulder was almost laughable. That homeless beard he had on showed nothing dramatic other than being reclused and he immediately shaved it off after almost very immediately accepted the FBI’s plea for help; discounting whatever it was that they have done to him.

The writers were to blame for this, which was also the part of the director’s. The story didn’t gel properly, the kidnappers’ story didn’t have enough convictions, and Duchovny’s deadpan one-liners felt like they belonged to the nineties. In the end, it felt like watching a CSI movie rather than the X Files.

Director Chris Carter should have made this a bigger X File movie with more paranormal activities, rather than something as normal as this which just didn’t justify the “X File” title.

Two ways this effort could have turned out better. 1) As a two-parter episode on TV, or better yet, shorten it to a 40-minute episode and it could turn out more exciting, or 2) Change the names and the title of the movie and release as a different movie entirely without the expectations that comes with an “X File”.

Rating: 4 / 10

(all images from imdb.com)