This should fill out my x letter quota just fine. That’s right, just like the letter q I hadn’t
talked about a movie that begins with an x.
But of course I fixed q with a very enjoyable viewing of The Queen. X is a little trickier because I didn’t want
to go into any of the X-Men pictures and
that doesn’t leave much else. Both xXx films were in strong
contention. I hadn’t seen the first one
since it came out and never checked out the sequel so they would’ve worked
wonderfully. But ultimately I went with The X Files feature. I can’t really tell you why. I guess the truth is out there or some shit.
In preparation for this movie I saw about the first half of
the first season. A little boning up on
the series seemed warranted and I’m glad I did that. The goal was to make a film for both
newcomers and fans but this definitely feels like it’s more for the
latter. There’re a couple of lines
thrown in here and there to get beginners up to speed like that the X files
division has been dissolved and that Mulder’s sister got abducted by aliens
when he was a boy. It comes off as the forced
unnecessary dialogue that it is though.
The rest of the time the filmmakers are moving forward with the
characters and ongoing story.
Speaking of story, it’s really confusing. I got that there are these aliens that use
humans to gestate inside of like in Alien
but there’s a bunch more going on. Who
the fuck are the good humans and the bad humans? Are Mulder and Scully the only good ones and is
everyone else bad? Does the ending mean
that nothing’s changed? Who was driving
the flying saucer at the end? Are the
aliens dead or did they just leave earth?
Why are there some humans that want to keep the aliens alive? Since they’re a threat to the entire world
wouldn’t all humans want to wipe out these sonsabitches? I don’t fucking understand any of this shit. The show stuck with simple narratives that
were really easy to follow. Sure, for a
feature film there’s the desire to make it bigger in just about every way but I
think the gestating alien plot with one government agency trying to cover it up
would’ve been enough. I guess that’s
what happens when you have 90 to 120 minutes to fill as opposed to 45.
Honestly, aside from shit being unclear I’m kinda struggling
to find stuff to say about this one.
It’s not like Mulder and Scully are very interesting characters (one’s a
wise crackin’ alien believer and the other’s a solemn skeptic, that’s about
it).
Let’s see what else there is…the aliens have a cool look to
them and it’s nasty when they tear a couple of people apart. But because this is rated PG-13 they’re
barely in the movie. The camerawork and
editing was ahead of its time whenever they attack with close-ups and quick
cuts. It’s unfortunate they had to do
this to keep the rating down.
Everything moves along fine for the first hour or so but
then it all becomes too convoluted and falls apart. In order to keep the script a secret they
didn’t have an ending until right before they shot it and it sure feels that
way. In fact most of the picture feels
like that. They knew they had to hit
certain beats (the FBI tries to split up Mulder and Scully, both of them get
closer to death presumably than they ever have, they care for each other more
than ever before and even almost kiss, the X files department gets reopened,
etc.) and they had a good starting point with the initial plot. The problem is the filmmakers threw in too
many twists which made it difficult for them to fit everything together.
There were just too many things to juggle with the
production. The movie had to satisfy
both fans and non-fans, the script had to be kept on the hush-hush as long as
possible (meaning parts were left unwritten until the last minute), they had to
craft a story that hadn’t already been covered in the five seasons of the show
and things had to be left open-ended enough for future seasons. Plus on top of all that there’s the usual
politics, compromise and bullshit that goes with making a major picture
(especially one that’s going for a PG-13 rating). AND this all goes double for this particular
film because it already has a huge established following built in. The X
Files is a proven formula so naturally a lot of folks want a piece of the
pie.
In the end this isn’t very good. It doesn’t have enough good stuff in it to
make it worth checking out (at least for novices to the series) and it’s not
interestingly bad either. Dammit, I’m
gonna have to watch the xXx’s now.
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