The X-Files (also known as The X-Files: Fight the Future) is a 1998 American science fiction Drama, Mystery film based on Chris Carter’s television series of the same name.
The film is rated PG-13 and it is two hours and1 minutes long. It was directed by Rob Bowman, written by Carter and Frank Spotnitz and it stars David Duchovny, Gillian Anderson, Mitch Pileggi, John Neville, and William B. Davis.
The X-Files: Fight the Future Review
Tonight, we’re talking about The X-Files: Fight the Future, which technically is not the title of the movie, despite being a subtitle on nearly every single poster.
The actual title of the movie is just The X Files, which is a really boring title for a movie, especially if you’re in a conversation with other fans and you’re trying to differentiate what you’re talking about and you’re like, yeah, I love The X Files. What is the movie or the show?Â
It’s like Halloween. There are eight Halloween movies now. The most recent Candy Man was technically a sequel to the 1992 Candy Man, and it was just called Candy Man again.
Movies you’re not helping me. I need to know what they’re called, and they have to be different. So I’m just going to call it Fight the Future.
This film was, of course, based on the wildly popular show that started as kind of a cult hit but eventually got more and more popular. It takes place after season five, and right before the start of season six.
As many of you know, the show was incredibly influential to me. It was one of the very few shows that I kind of got away with watching as a kid that was kind of violent.
I don’t actually know-how. I think it was one of those things that my mom just didn’t tell my dad about, and we just kind of like we just watched it and we just didn’t tell him.
We just did it. I don’t know. It felt so special every Sunday night to be able to watch a new episode of The X Files, and it really informed me as a storyteller as a kid in middle school, and we got a creative writing assignment, which I always loved.
I hated writing about historical figures and random shit like that. I wanted to write stories that were fictional and fun and exciting. I, of course, wrote my own X Files episode.
This was 6th grade, and my teacher picked me to be one of the students to read their story aloud in front of the class. I don’t know if she realized that I had written, like, a 30 page X Files treatment that was a novel form.
And I just read it in front of everybody for the whole class. I think I took up most of the 45 minutes period. I got an A-plus, but that was a long fucking presentation.
This film had a daunting task. It had to please hardcore fans, people who had been there since season one, who were wrapped up in this story, who knew who the characters were.
The filmmakers couldn’t insult those fans by resetting up everything and pretending like nobody knows anything. But it also had to be good enough and understandable for the average viewer.
Somebody who just watched this movie in the theater had never seen the show before and maybe could be converted into a fan after seeing the film and I think they succeeded.
The movie holds up very well. I just rewatched it last night. It’s been a while since I’ve seen it, and I think they did a really good job in doing all of those things.
I was watching it from the perspective of will this be the type of movie that an average viewer can enjoy? And I watched it with a friend of mine who has seen enough X Files to kind of get it but certainly is not a fan and definitely has not watched the whole show. And he loved the movie and he was very easily able to understand what was going on.
This film, of course, follows Mulder and Scully, played by David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson.
Mulder is an FBI agent who believes in the paranormal whose sister was abducted by aliens when he was a child and spends his days in the basement of the FBI offices trying to prove that UFOs and paranormal things exist.
Scully was assigned to debunk his findings and be a skeptic, someone who can actually come in there with scientific evidence and say, this is bullshit here’s why this is really happening.
So they butt heads. And of course, there’s a romance that blossoms that for many, many seasons, fans were left wondering when they would ever kiss or if they would ever kiss or what would ever happen. And the film has a scene where we almost got that, but not quite so.
As far as films based on TV shows, I think this is one of the best. I really love this movie. I think it’s extremely tight. It’s very well-paced. This movie has three great openings.
The intro scene with Cavemen discovering an alien leads into a scene where kids fall into that same cavern in the present-day, which brings us to Mulder and Scully’s introduction.
They’re searching for a bomb. There’s been a bomb threat, and since the X Files at this point in the continuity of the show have been closed, they’re doing normal FBI agent stuff, and this, of course, leads them into a larger conspiracy.
Because when this bomb goes off, there are mysterious dead bodies that appear in the rubble, dead bodies that seem like they’ve been dead long before that bomb went off.
And Mulder wonders was this bomb threat and this explosion were just a cover-up to hide three dead bodies that they wanted to disappear. It’s actually a really smart setup.
And this was directed by Rob Bowman, who later made Reign of Fire in 2002 and Elektra in 2005. This is definitely his best film, and he’s a very strong, capable director.
I wish that I could watch more films directed by him. I think he’s a fantastic filmmaker. His transitions between scenes, especially, are on point.
Nearly every scene has some kind of cliffhanger and then an image right when the next one starts, that jolts you into that scene and just keeps you glued.
Much has been said about the chemistry between David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson, and it certainly doesn’t disappoint here. They work extremely well together and are absolutely adorable.
In the past few years, we’ve had a big push to have strong, independent women characters in film, and that’s great. But a lot of people forget about Scully.
And when it comes to informing new viewers about the gist of the past five seasons without sounding too expositiony without being boring and without, as I said, insulting longtime fans, they found a really clever way of doing that.
Mulder is drunk and he’s rambling to a bartender when she asks him what he does.
That’s actually kind of genius because you get information and you learn things you might not have known in a very entertaining way the best way to do exposition.
This is kind of a hard pg-13 there’s actually a fair amount of creature gore and really nasty things that they get away with because it is creature related it’s monster it’s goopy and stuff. But there’s some miss up gore in the film too and it’s always impressed me for a pg-13.
The film also looks great. Rob Bowman has tons of great frames in this movie. And if you put cornfields in a movie you’re just gonna get me. I don’t know it just always does.
Even if the movie’s not great the cornfields it just adds something to it i love them. and the following scene that takes place in this chamber filled with bees. Watching it last night i was really taken by how phenomenal it looks. Why does it look so good?
They had an actual beekeeper there on set throwing bees on David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson this entire sequence is riveting. It’s way better directed than I think it gets credit for.
I think one of the reasons the film doesn’t get that much credit is because it is sort of taken out of continuity of a larger whole.
If you have experienced the show and you kind of go in with the knowledge of the show especially when it comes to characterization, this film feels way bigger and i think way better than some people might think it is.
I mean there’s even a sequence in this movie that could be a whole movie honestly or at least a really great twilight zone episode.
When scully falls unconscious after being stung by this bee, an ambulance comes and takes her away. And then the driver of that ambulance shoots Mulder in the his head.
And behind him you see the real ambulance that he called for coming and you’re like who the fuck did she just disappear with.
That’s like the start of a great thriller because you have to think about what makes a great thriller. Usually it has something to do with you know an everyday thing or something involving a family member or a loved one that you take for granted that goes wrong in some way and now you have to deal with that.
When you have a loved one who’s fallen unconscious and you call an ambulance you expect the ambulance that shows up to be the good guys, but what if it just wasn’t like that’s a whole movie right there and it’s just this one little scene.
And this makes Mulder very desperate. He breaks out of the hospital. He’s literally been shot in the head. He’s sweaty. He’s got nothing to lose. He doesn’t know where scully is. This is a great place to put your hero. Put them at their lowest point. It’s exciting filmmaking and great character work.
Now there’s a sequence near the end of this movie that actually is legitimately one of the scariest scenes I’ve ever seen in my life and it’s partially very much so in my own head it’s not going to affect other people in the same way.
When it comes to real world fears we all have very similar things. You know our loved ones being hurt or whatever. There are two specific things that to me are just very no one of them is being stranded in the middle of the ocean.
Knowing that there are sharks and all kinds of things that might potentially eat me and I cannot see land on either side of me 360 there’s no land I’m just floating in the ocean that’s one of my biggest horrifyings no.
The other one is claustrophobia. The idea of being pressed against on all sides. So it’s like trapped in a collapsing tunnel underground. That’s one of the reasons the descent works so well for me.
There’s a sequence in this movie where mulder is forced to crawl through this very small ice tunnel after having fallen down i don’t know what 10 or 20 stories.
And now he’s squeezing his body through this ice tunnel and has to like move his his body all around to even get through this.
It’s just as horrifying as the goddamn shawshank redemption pipe. I hate it so much and every time i watch it, it gives me chills.
The sequence inside the ufo and the escape of it, I genuinely think is masterful. I don’t think this movie gets enough credit as far as movies based off tv shows.
It’s easily one of the best but I do think it’s an extremely strong science fiction movie with great characters. And you can watch it for the most part.Â
Taken out of continuity it greatly helps if you have seen the show and you love these characters and you understand what some of these things mean to the characters.
But you don’t necessarily have to have all that to at least have a passive enjoyment of the movie and I think it’s wonderful if you’ve never seen it. Check out the show of course, but i also think that you should watch the film.
So I am going to give The X Files a C-Plus.
Guys thank you so much as always for reading the review of the Halloween movie Halloween The X Files. See you next time.
The X Files Trailer
Check out the trailer of the Drama, Mystery, Sci-Fi film, The X Files 1998.
