I Wanna Believe! Really!

My paramour -- the lovely Rita -- was out of town so I decided to exercise my freedom to do something out of character and a little wild. So I went to a movie.

And not only did I go to a movie, I traversed back into time a few years and went to the X Files Movie -- I Want To Believe. I wanted to believe also, but what I did get was a couple of entertaining hours of watching Mulder and Scully scurry around on the trail of bad guys. With a pretty bad storyline.

Don't get me wrong, I had a great time and felt like I found a comfortable old sweater again (uh...bad metaphor. It's 90 degrees outside.) But, it you weren't an "X-Phile" yourself, you might have disliked the movie on its own merits. Or lack thereof. At the conclusion of the movie, I left the theater with the following questions.

When has it ever snowed so much in Richmond? What happened to the baby William that Scully and Mulder created?? Did Scully/Mulder live together in Richmond or was Mulder in West Virgina secluded away alone? What was the evil Russian scientist really building from body parts? And why weren't they getting body parts in Russia where they spoke the language and wouldn't have been so obvious? And what was the dog tranquillizer all about?

And where were the aliens? How was the government conspiracy coming along? What happened to the Lone Gunmen? Did Scully and Mulder go their separate ways at the end? WTF? I have the feeling that many of the answers to my questions ended up on the cutting room floor.

This was a TV series that raised more questions than it answered. And the same with this particular film. I had expected the storyline to follow the conspiracy thing once again, but this movie was like one of those X File episodes that stood alone as a one-off story. Some of those individual one-off episodes were very good, some not so. The movie would have ranked right in the middle of that scale.

Still, I repeat I enjoyed watching the film 'cause it took me back to younger days and some memories. I recall videotaping and mailing X Files episodes for Kris, who was stationed in Korea for a year. I also recall that it was during an episode of X Files that my faithful pooch Abby at age 18 passed away, laying next to me on the couch that Sunday evening. And the show also ran through the time Rita and I were dating. And it was warm and fuzzy feeling to think of those times in my life in the context of the series.

More Random Thoughts
X Files ran for 9 years -- and probably a year or two too long. And I fear it damaged the careers of the actors --Duchovney and Andersen. Neither seem have done anything memorable in the 6 or 7 years since the show closed. How could these actors really be anything other than Scully and Mulder?

And a final word about the endless previews that precede the film: You really gotta plan to arrive 15 minutes late to any movie. Don't the studios know that 7 or 8 previews in a row fails to titillate or tantalize? Instead, they numb the senses or causes seizures. And what is the thing with large cars crashing through walls coming straight at us? There must have been 4 previews that featured that well-worn chestnut. Now if they were to use a Smart Car in that scene, that would be something!