“X-Files: I Want To Believe” Strays From Original Plot
The second “X-Files” movie was released over the weekend. “I Want To Believe” had the same dark nature that many people love in the television series - but it deals more with faith then with sci-fi aliens that no one has seen and there are no government conspiracies.
It takes some daring risks involving sexuality, religion and medicine, which sometimes prove more shocking than the film’s scarier material. Despite the occasional bits of humor — there’s a priceless George W. Bush gag — it takes that title wish, formerly just a tag line on a poster in Fox Mulder’s D.C. office, too seriously at times for the story’s good.
A hushed, reflective tone dominates after an FBI agent is jarringly abducted from her snowbound West Virginia home. The task force in charge of finding her approaches Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson), now a pediatric surgeon at a Catholic hospital, to get in contact with her old partner Mulder (David Duchovny).
There’s a supernatural wrinkle in the investigation: Seems a pedophile ex-priest, Joseph Crissman (Billy Connolly), has extrasensory visions relating to the case that aren’t quite enough to solve it. The Bureau could now use Mulder’s expertise, even though they booted him out six years ago for general weirdness and evidently put a warrant on his head.
As smart and obsessed as ever, Mulder and Scully generate a lot of good will that helps “I Want to Believe” plow its way out of numerous narrative snowbanks. Primarily concerned with the slippery nature of faith in various contexts, the plot loses traction. Fortunately, we care more about Mulder and Scully’s souls than the rather preposterous mystery’s outcome.