I was an X-Phile. When the movie came out, I had watched almost every single episode. I continued to watch the show after the movie, but my interest had wavered by the seventh series.
This movie was okay but underwhelming. It just didn't have the scale and scope that a movie should have compared to a television series. Now television has come in leaps and bounds over time. Just look at what they do on '24' each week - every episode is like a mini-movie. And many of the X-File episodes like the 'Duane Barry' trilogy, and 'Anasazi' trilogy were cracking in their pace and drama. But the movie just feels like a glorified television episode. I remember a documentary on the making of the movie, and the cast and crew were excitedly describing the opening of the movie where a bomb goes off in a building. Now everyone involved was understandably chuffed and excited by the new experience, but all filmgoers know that blowing up things are like the meat and potatoes of action movies. It's been done over and over and over.
Overall, they were trying to push forward for the hardcore fans but also draw in a wider audience. This holds the movie back in many ways. The plot was a tad too complex and insiderish for the non-fans and they slightly over-estimated the fanbase pleasure at just seeing Mulder, Scully and the Cigarette Man on the big-screen. The big sequences - the bomb, the corn field - were not large enough for the average person. Winking at the fans like Mulder and Scully 'stung kissing' and Scully missing out seeing the paranormal stuff was cute but becoming a bit too much of a tease by this stage. There were no great revelations or twists for anybody. Too much sitting around in smoke-filled rooms and not enough humour.
The above is mostly criticism because I was a long-time fan. But it's not a bad film - like I said, just a big TV episode. If you were a fan of the show and for some reason haven't seen it yet, you should give it a whirl. Others could probably give it a miss. They're saying now that the second film will be more of a monster of the week thing than a mythology thing, which shows they may have learnt something. I mean, the mythology eventually became so convoluted with so many questions and almost no answers that I don't think they could make it into an accessible movie if they tried. For the next movie, I assume Chris Carter, Frank Spotnitz, and Rob Bowman will be the likely creative team but all the hardcore fans know that Glen Morgan and James Wong wrote some of the best eps - however they too have fallen off the wagon - 'Final Destination' movies and 'The One.' Oh well, fingers crossed anyway ...
This movie was okay but underwhelming. It just didn't have the scale and scope that a movie should have compared to a television series. Now television has come in leaps and bounds over time. Just look at what they do on '24' each week - every episode is like a mini-movie. And many of the X-File episodes like the 'Duane Barry' trilogy, and 'Anasazi' trilogy were cracking in their pace and drama. But the movie just feels like a glorified television episode. I remember a documentary on the making of the movie, and the cast and crew were excitedly describing the opening of the movie where a bomb goes off in a building. Now everyone involved was understandably chuffed and excited by the new experience, but all filmgoers know that blowing up things are like the meat and potatoes of action movies. It's been done over and over and over.
Overall, they were trying to push forward for the hardcore fans but also draw in a wider audience. This holds the movie back in many ways. The plot was a tad too complex and insiderish for the non-fans and they slightly over-estimated the fanbase pleasure at just seeing Mulder, Scully and the Cigarette Man on the big-screen. The big sequences - the bomb, the corn field - were not large enough for the average person. Winking at the fans like Mulder and Scully 'stung kissing' and Scully missing out seeing the paranormal stuff was cute but becoming a bit too much of a tease by this stage. There were no great revelations or twists for anybody. Too much sitting around in smoke-filled rooms and not enough humour.
The above is mostly criticism because I was a long-time fan. But it's not a bad film - like I said, just a big TV episode. If you were a fan of the show and for some reason haven't seen it yet, you should give it a whirl. Others could probably give it a miss. They're saying now that the second film will be more of a monster of the week thing than a mythology thing, which shows they may have learnt something. I mean, the mythology eventually became so convoluted with so many questions and almost no answers that I don't think they could make it into an accessible movie if they tried. For the next movie, I assume Chris Carter, Frank Spotnitz, and Rob Bowman will be the likely creative team but all the hardcore fans know that Glen Morgan and James Wong wrote some of the best eps - however they too have fallen off the wagon - 'Final Destination' movies and 'The One.' Oh well, fingers crossed anyway ...