I don't want to believe

The show “X-Files” was impressive for a number of reasons; it kept FOX afloat in prime time for the better part of a decade, it had some of the highest television production values outside of HBO features and while never resolving Mulder’s search for truth, the plots satisfied viewers in ways that hadn’t been explored with depth since “The Twilight Zone.”

This film does none of these things. The mystery is barely paranormal (if at all), the pacing is boring and the general feel of the mise-en-scene wasn’t up to par; it just felt like a generic suspense movie.

The previous film, for all its flaws, did a good job of preserving the look and feel of the show that made it so distinctive. Maybe that’s not a good strategy for a movie, but it’s preferable to bland, unremarkable genre style.

The saving grace of the film is, much like the show, David Duchovny as Fox Mulder, and, to a lesser extent, Gillian Anderson as Dana Scully.

Duchovny has been inside Mulder’s character for so long that he can seamlessly pick up where the show left off even if the writers can’t. He still has the one-liners and his character is confident enough to carry the plot.

Unfortunately, the movie seems to linger more on Scully’s conflicts that don’t have anything to do with the rest of the film, which was uninteresting and unoriginal.

I’ve heard longtime “X-Files” fans admit that most of the appeal of the movie is seeing Mulder and Scully onscreen again after so many years, which I think has some intrinsic value. But as far as films go, “X-Files: I Want to Believe” can’t be considered a success; it doesn’t solve any old mysteries and barely introduces any new ones.

One of the main critical complaints about the first film was that it too closely resembled a two-part episode of the TV show. This film tried to distance itself from its TV-show genesis and succeeded; it just didn’t have anything to offer after that.