DVD Release Date: December 2, 2008
Theatrical Release Date: July 25, 2008
Rating: PG-13 (for violent and disturbing content and thematic material)
Genre: Science Fiction, Thriller
Run Time: 104 min.
Director: Chris Carter
Actors: David Duchovny, Gillian Anderson, Billy Connolly, Amanda Peet, Alvin “Xzibit” Joiner, Adam Godley
In chapter nine of Mark’s Gospel, a man asks Jesus to heal his son. The boy has been possessed by a spirit since childhood that robs him of speech and throws him on the ground. Jesus’ disciples had been unable to cast out the spirit. A conversation ensues:
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“If you can do anything, take pity on us and help us,” the man pleads. “‘If you can’?” Jesus asks. “Everything is possible for him who believes.” The man immediately exclaims, “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!”
The new
X-Files movie,
The X-Files: I Want to Believe, explores the gulf between skepticism and true belief, as well as the journey between the two. Fox Mulder (
David Duchovny) is the true believer—an expert in psychic phenomena who once worked for the FBI on cases involving the paranormal, but who now lives in seclusion. Dana Scully (
Gillian Anderson), another former FBI agent currently working as a doctor at a Catholic hospital, is the skeptic. She believes in science and has found her calling in the world of medicine.
Asked by the bureau to assist in tracking down Mulder, Scully recruits him to help in the hunt for a missing agent. Mulder has only one condition: that Scully join him in the investigation. The only thing the FBI has to go on is the testimony of a psychic priest who claims to have received visions that will help determine the whereabouts of the missing woman.
And so Mulder and Scully reunite to solve the case, reviving an
X-Files franchise that spanned nine seasons on TV (the series ended in 2002) and one previous theatrical film (
The X Files in 1998).
Billy Connolly plays the psychic, Father Joseph Crissman, but his vision of the victimized agent leads the FBI team only to a severed arm of unexplained origin. He insists that the agent is still alive, but the team, led by Dakota Whitney (
Amanda Peet) and Agent Mosley Drummy (
Alvin “Xzibit” Joiner), grows more frustrated as the hours tick by. As Scully notes, the chances of finding the agent alive are slim to none.
But Scully’s skepticism is based on more than mere percentages and probabilities of survival. She knows of Crissman’s past as a pedophile priest convicted of molesting 37 boys. “Maybe it’s not God doing the sending” of visions, she tells Mulder, although he exhibits complete confidence in Father Joe’s claims.