Why?
Why resurrect one of the most beloved pop-culture phenomena of the Clinton era,
after six years on the sidelines? The hopelessly tardy new X-Files sequel I Want To Believe never provides a compelling answer to that question.
Then again, nothing about this sluggishly paced, tension-impaired supernatural
snoozer is compelling. The last time a geek favorite delivered such an anticlimactic
follow-up to a cherished science-fiction institution, a rascally,
malapropism-spouting Rastafarian frogman named Jar-Jar Binks was prominently
involved.
Chris
Carter's too-little-too-late extension of his lucrative TV-series franchise
finds a heavily bearded David Duchovny hiding out from the FBI while his
erstwhile partner Gillian Anderson works at a Catholic hospital. The
increasingly non-dynamic duo is called back into action when an FBI agent goes
missing and the feds are reduced to relying on the questionable services of an
ambiguously psychic pedophiliac, a former priest played with brooding intensity
by Scottish comedian turned character actor Billy Connolly. In a subplot that
somehow manages to be even duller than the main plot, Anderson must decide
whether to perform a risky surgery on a desperately ill boy against the wishes
of her glowering bosses.
The
eminently passable first X-Files movie
reconceived the series as a big-budget action blockbuster, but I Want
To Believe never feels remotely cinematic.
It's a peculiarly dour, humorless film filled with hushed conversations against
snowy, interchangeable backdrops. Believe is so low-energy that Duchovny emerges as its most manic element by
default. The sexual tension between Anderson and Duchovny, which once defined
the show as much as its supernatural shenanigans, has all but disappeared,
replaced by the sexless, dull relationship of geriatrics who tired of each
other decades ago. With the exception of Connolly, the new characters are
forgettable, especially a monotone FBI agent played with bludgeoning
anti-charisma by rapper Xzibit. Like Exorcist: Dominion, Believe tries
to invest a pop genre movie with an air of spiritual gravity, but instead it
fails as both a solemn meditation on faith and a spooky chiller. The film's
subtitle proves bitterly ironic: Carter and his underachieving cohorts have
seldom given cultists less to believe.