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Reviews Counted: 154
Fresh: 50
Rotten:104
Average Rating: 4.9/10
Consensus: The chemistry between leads David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson do live up to The X-Files' televised legacy, but the roving plot and droning routines make it hard to identify just what we're meant to believe in.
Runtime: 1 hr 48 mins
Genre: Science-Fiction/Fantasy
Theatrical Release: Jul 25, 2008 Wide
Box Office: $20,847,266
Synopsis: THE X-FILES(TM): I WANT TO BELIEVE is a new motion picture based on the phenomenally popular, award-winning series The X-Files. Long-anticipated, the film reunites series stars David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson under the direction... [More]
Starring: David Duchovny, Gillian Anderson, Amanda Peet, Xzibit
Director: Chris Carter
Unfortunately for this movie, television has evolved well past this degree of silliness and spoon feeding, leaving our beloved X-Files in the vault. I wanted to believe it would be fun movie, but this was definitely time spent.
X-Files: I Want to Believe %u2014 it's almost like a mantra that Chris Carter is trying to get the audience to hear. Say it enough times and they will believe. Well, that's not the case.
The X-Files 2: I Want to Believe isn't a groundbreaking film by any stretch %u2014 but that it challenges the viewer to consider certain moral imperatives in a season devoted to films revolving around explosions and fart jokes makes it a daring pie
If you are going to go back to the 90s for source material, it had better come juiced with some modern day action.
Carter has with The X-Files: I Want to Believe created a mediocre mystery that relies too frequently on coincidence and screenwriting convenience to elicit genuine interest, much less "belief" in its twists and turns.
There's a very strong spiritual underside to The X-Files: I Want to Believe. It gives the story a lot of emotional weight, while also making the creepy stuff that much more disturbing.
Mulder and Scully are finally back on the case, but after six years apart, they could use a little platitude adjustment.
It's like an especially gloomy episode of the series, stretched a bit too long. And we miss the ad breaks.
This is essentially just a bog-standard (if slightly gruesome) thriller, but it's a treat to see Anderson and Duchovny together again and fans of the show won't be disappointed.
The best thrillers dig deeper than this one does, as did the best of The X Files on TV before the series ran out of steam.
There seems to be several scenes missing from the final cut - all the ones that make sense.
The movie works as a decent enough thriller, but lacks some of the X factor of the original series.
As the famous theme tune is whistled over the opening credits, listen carefully and you may hear the gentle chime of ringing tills as Mulder and Scully return for a pointless cash-in on the TV series.
This is less a case of The X Files and more like The Y Bother Files. Dull, dull, dull. Avoid.
Slow, laborious and ponderous without ever earning the right to be, I Want To Believe is a mis-fire that threatens the franchise’s very existence. The only mystery here is, what went wrong?
I Want to Believe is too little, too late: a timid stab at reviving 1990s terror tropes in an age when the fuzzy fear of sci-fi has been replaced by darker and more real stories narrated by al-Qa'eda and CIA Black Ops teams.
Even the most devout X-Files fan may have their faith tested by this snoozy addition to the franchise, which glides into cinemas with all the urgency of a Dalek with a flat battery.
September 02, 2008:
RT's Summer in Review: The Best, The Worst, and Our Favorite Films!
The summer movie season of 2008 ended last weekend, and boy, was it a good one. Led by box office smashes like Iron Man, Wall-E, and The Dark Knight, Hollywood raked in the... More...
August 01, 2008:
Weekly Ketchup: Plans For Venom, Marvin The Martian, X-Files, And More
In this week's Weekly Ketchup, we've got the latest spin-offs, remakes and trilogies, and Disney's lofty plan for a video game adaptation. More...
August 01, 2008:
RT Interview: David Duchovny on The X-Files, Californication and Directing
It's been six years since we last saw Mulder and Scully together on screen, and with the release of The X-Files: Fight the Future, David Duchovny sits down to tell us what the... More...
July 31, 2008:
Kim Newman's Guide to The X-Files
As I Want to Believe arrives in cinemas, take a look back at the show that started it all; meet the characters and relive some of the best moments. More...
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