The Good

Well, after all these years they did keep their promise and make an X Files sequel.

The Bad

We waited all these years for this?To say that I was able to follow the plot of this movie would be a huge inaccuracy. In

The X Files: I Want to Believe, Scully (Gillian Anderson) and Mulder (David Duchovny) are thrown together again when an FBI agent goes missing. They are aided by a former priest (Billy Connolly) who claims that God is sending him images of the disappearance. This sets Scully and Mulder at odds because he believes him while she does not. What ensues is a game of cat and mouse, false starts, and just about every other supernatural cliche in the book as this movie does its best to live up to the fans and creators expectations. Freighted with so much weight from both sides, what seems to have gotten lost in this movie is the ability to tell the story it so desperately wants to tell.

At times I wasn't sure if The X Files: I Want to Believe was a relationship movie between our main characters, a sci-fi thriller, a horror film or all three wrapped up into one. Sadly, it seems that with Chris Carter and Frank Spotnitz trying to make this movie be all things to all people it has ended up being nothing at all.

Features

BD-Live Interactive Feature

Sadly, my Sony Blu-ray player isn't presently BD Live Enabled so I wasn't able to access this featurette.

Commentary Track

Chris Carter and Frank Spotnitz serve up the commentary track here and they do a somewhat decent job of explaining this film. The only problem is that when this movie played theatrically the viewers didn't have this track to guide them through the viewing. One could argue that they made I Want to Believe the way they did because they wanted fans to be totally immersed in this experience. The idea being that they were going to make this film the way they made it, then users would utilize the various features it came with to make the film comprehensible. I personally don't think that this is the case although, amid the litany of production stories, anecdotes and other information, one can also view Spotnitz and Carter with a Picture-In-Picture commentary track.

Chris Carter: Statements on Green Production Featurette

Trust No One Documentary

This film looks at the making of this film but also examines the overall lore behind this franchise. I actually think that this was probably the best extra offering on this release As I mentioned at the beginning of this review, I didn't come to this viewing of I Want to Believe as some huge fan. I had seen a few episodes here and there but I never followed it. In fact, I remember people making references to certain aspects of this show and I was never able to stay up on them. That said when I checked out this featurette (and I wasn't able to watch all of it due to other time commitments), I really gleaned a lot from the information, back stories, and themes from the show that were being put across.

Visual Effects Featurette

Deleted Scenes, Gag Reel and Still Galleries

One has to be happy that this release comes with 3 Hours of additional content. Something tells me that the people behind this film knew that they had a clunker. They would had to have known that by the time this DVD was finally taking shape because this movie only made $20 million in the US. (To be fair, the budget was $35 million and this film did take in about $70 worldwide (plus $15 million more on DVD) so ultimately it wasn't a total dud.) Anyway, these featurettes are of the garden variety nature. Nothing stands out too much but I am sure fans will enjoy these things.

Video

This film is presented in Widescreen 2.40:1. The disc itself is BD Live Enabled, it offers the D-Box Motion Control System as well as an Interactive Timeline. From a purely looks standpoint, The X Files: I Want to Believe was made for the Blu-ray experience. This is probably the best thing I can I say about this release. The images were really crisp and that is saying a lot considering the amount of blues an blacks that have been incorporated into this film. While Chris Carter and Director of Photography Bill Roe seem to always be looking for ways to manipulate the images on the screen, ultimately this movie looks like actors acting amidst meticulous film set-ups.

Audio

Dolby Digital. English 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio. Spanish and French 5.1 Dolby Digital. Subtitled in English, Spanish, Korean, Mandarin and Cantonese. AVC @ 19.5 MBPS. This is a Blu-ray release that really does well by the audio. Everything was strongly layered and richly put together. The audio seemed to surround me as I was watching this film and on a few occasions I had to turn the sound down because it was so powerful. In a movie theater this probably would have been too much for me but in the comfort of my living room I liked the overall experience.

Package

The shadows of Scully and Mulder create and X on the front cover of this Blu-ray release. The back features one shot of our heroes. There is a description of what this movie is about, an extensive Special Features listing, technical specs and a cast and credits list. In addition to all the other extra bells and whistles, this release also boasts having a digital copy for your portable media player.

Final Word

I had never really watched this show when it was on but I had a certain respect for it because I know how rabid the fans are about it. Sadly, it seems like there was no way that this movie could succeed. For years I remember hearing Carter and Spotnitz toy with journalists and fans about when this inevitable sequel would take place. What ultimately ended up happening it seems is that this movie either A) couldn't live up to the hype or B) couldn't rekindle the magic that this show initially had.

I have talked to people are huge fans of this show and they have absolutely nothing good to say about this film. That is sad because it really seems like an opportunity that was lost. After-all, the TV audience is huge and it seems like had things been better executed and more thought out, The X Files: I Want to Believe could have made believers out of us all.

The X-Files: I Want to Believe was released July 24, 2008.