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Perhaps the best thing about The X-Files TV series and movie is that their creator, Chris Carter, believes in the credo of producer Val Lewton (Cat People and I Walked With a Zombie): What you cannot see is much scarier than what you can see. He doesn't doctor up his TV show by using Hollywood dollars to craft an over-the-top effects movie. He has carefully and smartly crossed over the series' creepy, quiet and sexy style. The X-Files: Fight the Future continues the adventures of FBI agents Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson), the antipodal pair who, on the series, are assigned to the FBI's unexplainable phenomena division, known as the X-Files. On the TV show's season finale, the files that guide the detectives have been burned. As the movie opens, the pair has been reassigned to the FBI's anti-terrorism unit. Sent out to cover boring things such as the bombing of a federal building in Dallas, Mulder and Scully go about their business with little inspiration. But Mulder soon infers that the explosion was really a cover-up for actions much more devious than any Oklahoma City-style tragedy. A cadre of crusty older men that includes Conrad Strughold (Armin Mueller-Stahl), the Cigarette-Smoking Man (William B. Davis) and the Well-Manicured Man (John Neville) has gone into cahoots with some evil aliens. By infecting the world with a lethal black oil virus, the cabal of men hopes to conquer all. Of course innocents have been contamined, and no one's really sure if the aliens can be trusted. But the plan's biggest obstacle is Mulder's mucking around. Unlike in so many Hollywood blockbuster movies, we are not sure what will happen to the heroes. Anything goes: Mulder could become a religious nut, Scully could become the queen of an alien colony. Or they could die, only to be resurrected in some later episode. Like the TV show, this movie takes risks that most other blockbusters would avoid: an intricate plot, actors whose looks fit with their characters' job descriptions, and the death of a kid. The picture is also unusually intelligent, a credit to the cast and creator. Duchovny and Anderson have an effortless screen chemistry. Duchovny plays Mulder as a droll, laconic oddball: Jack Webb with a sense of humor. Though he has been known to show emotion, he generally remains inscrutable and amused. Anderson is similarly matter-of-fact and brainy. She is often saved by Mulder, but one never gets the feeling that she is merely the necessary female counterpoint to his weirdo knight-in-shining-armor routine. In fact, she depicts more of the stereotypical masculine mind-set than her partner--nonchalantly ripping off a corpse's fingernails or poking a probe in a chest full of goo. Scully believes in rational, empirical science; Mulder believes in intuition, the latest rumor, the implausible. Conspiracy can be made stupidly unbelievable, but Carter adds an intellectual quality to the popular alien ideology. We never see any green monsters, only sinister, suited men who look like a McLaughlin Group debate team of William F. Buckley, Gore Vidal and Irving Howe. There is a black helicopter, a cornfield and a fabulous bee scene, but these play more like mythic representations of typically American fears than conspiracy icons. This is just another sign that The X-Files team is confident enough to know that it has made a smarter-than-average movie. In a scene in which Mulder relieves himself by a garbage Dumpster outside, what does he do the deed on? A poster for Independence Day. Touché. |
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