The X-Files Fight The Future Starring
-David Duchovny as Agent Fox Mulder
-Gillian Anderson as Agent Dana Scully
-Martin Landau as Kurtzweil
-Armin Mueller-stahl as Strughold
-Blythe Danner as Cassidy
-Mitch Pileggi as Walter Skinner
-William B. Davis as The Cigarette-Smoking Man
-John Neville as The Well-Manicured Man
-Terry O’quinn as Michaud
-Jeffrey De Munnb as ronschweig
-Lucas Black as Stevie
And Directed by Rob Bowman
The Background
I first started to watch the X-Files a few years ago. This was when the BBC caught on to the fact that it was a popular show and gave it a prime time slot after buying it off satellite television. I watched all of season one and then after that I watched episodes recorded off satellite television from friends who had that service. The first four episodes were released in two collectors box sets with more to follow.
My friends and I were caught up in the buzz of the show. Then Fox pulled the plug on releasing the episodes individually. This really peed us all off, and around a year later Fox started to release the show as files. Two part episodes were edited together and sold as mini movies. I bought the first four and then never got around to buying file five and my interest wandered. This wasn’t helped by the fact that someone who was lending me the shows recorded of satellite, wasn’t recording them all. I must of seen everyone up to about halfway through season four. My interest just died down. I didn’t really care for it any more. But when I learned of the movie, I thought to myself, ’’Its just going to be a big episode on the big screen. The plots going to be so complex, you’ll have to of seen every episode to understand it. I didn’t really care for the movie, especially as the reviews from the US were looking average. The time came and after another day at school, I went to see it with my friends.
The Plot:
The movie opens up in 35, 000BC. Two cavemen are in a cave with their lit torches, they are attacked by some strange creature which kills one of them. The remaining caveman kills it and finds a strange black oil leaking from one of the creatures wounds. The caveman soon finds the oil crawling underneath his skin. As he screams in pain we see his eyes fill with the black oil. After a jump forward to the present day, a small bay falls through the ground into a old cave, his friends rush to the holes edge to check up on him. The fallen boy, Stevie, thinks nothing of it and finds a skull nearby. As he holds the skull up to show his friends, a thick black oil is seeping from the ground. Stevie looks on in terror as the oil posseses him.
His friends run off scared, hoping to find help. The fire department arrive and the four firemen who go down to get the boy, never come back up. As the fire chief starts to wonder what the hell is going on. Several unmarked white trucks turn up. A helicopter lands and four men in anti bacteria suits go down the hole and pop back up with the boy, who has been placed in a strange containment device.
A few weeks later Mulder and Scully are searching one of the FBI buildings due to a anonymous tip off about a bomb. When they come up with nothing, Mulder goes off to buy a couple of cans of drink when he finds the bomb. The FBI had been searching the wrong building. The building is cleared and one of the main agents who stayed behind to diffuse the bomb, sits there and watches the bomb explode. A quarter of the building is lost in the explosion. At the enquiry afterwards, Skinner tells Mulder and Scully that the enquiry board is trying to put the blame on someone, especially as three bodies were found in the wreckage afterwards. Mulder and Scully are shocked as they were certain the building was cleared.
With the spare time they have between hearings, Mulder and Scully lie there way into the military building which is holding the bodies from the explosion. Things start to get interesting for Mulder and Scully when they find out that the bodies didn’t die in the explosion but are the firemen and Stevie from the incident a few weeks ago. They decide to find out what’s really going on. This film was a lot better than I was expecting. The plot was extremely easy to follow and no X-Files knowledge is required to watch the film although to know something does make the film even more interesting. My only niggle with the film is the slightly over the top ending which I won’t go into here for spoiler reasons.
The cast all performed very well, bringing out there usual standard. No one seemed to be at difficulty with the change from television to film. The effects were very good and considering the films budget, it does extremely well. The lone gunman who are one of my favourite set of characters were seriously underused and literally just make an appearance. Apparently there are several in-jokes for true fans, but I only spotted one Star Wars reference which I found rather amusing.
All-in-all a very entertaining movie well worth watching whether you are a fan of the X-files or not.