World Famous Comics: The X-Files - Fight the Future (Widescreen Edition)
The X-Files - Fight the Future (Widescreen Edition)
Starring: David Duchovny, Gillian Anderson, John Neville, William B. Davis, Martin Landau Directed By: Rob Bowman Average Rating: Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1 Audience Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested) Binding: DVD Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DTS Surround Sound, DVD-Video, Widescreen, NTSC Label: 20th Century Fox Number of Items: 1 Picture Format: Anamorphic Widescreen Region Code: 1 Release Date: January 23, 2001 Running Time: 122 minutes Theatrical Release Date: June 19, 1998
Description: Thirty-seven thousand years ago, a deadly secret was buried in a cave in Texas. Now the secret has been unleashed. And it's discovery may mean the end of all humanity.
"The plague to end all plagues"
When a terrorist bomb destroys a building in Dallas, Texas, FBI Agents Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) are drawn into a dangerous conspiracy surpassing anything they've ever encountered. With the dubious assistance of a paranoid doctor (Academy Award -winner Martin Landau). Mulder and Scully risk their careers and their lives to hunt down a deadly virus which may be extraterrestrial in origin - and could destroy all life on earth. Their pursuit of truth pits them against the mysterious Syndicate, powerful men who will stop at nothing to keep their secrets safe, leading the agents from the cave in Texas, to the halls of the FBI, and finally to a secret installation in Antarctica which holds the greatest secret of all.
Amazon.com: The definitive American television series of the '90s comes to the big screen with an anticlimactic whimper. And how could it be otherwise? Why should material so perfectly realized in one medium necessarily translate well into another? The series is crisply and thoughtfully executed in just about every detail, but the heart of its appeal lies in the elegant handling of complicated and evolving ongoing story lines, which is not something movies are especially good at. The big-screen drive for closure cramps the creative style, though it may also help nonfans get a grip on the proceedings. We do get some invigorating thrills and chills, however, and a more satisfying sense of the scale of an all-enveloping human-alien conspiracy than ever before, but there's no more plot development here than in an average two-part season-ending. FBI black sheep Mulder and Scully have been temporarily transferred from the X-Files project to an anti-terrorist unit to investigate an Oklahoma City-style bombing. They uncover a new wrinkle in the Syndicate/Cancer Man conspiracy--basically an attempt to help one bunch of (benign?) aliens fight off another bunch who want to colonize Earth. A spectacular, ice-bound finale thrillingly staged by series-veteran director Rob Bowman offers Mulder (but not a conveniently unconscious Scully) his first clear look at a You Know What, which in some quarters qualifies as an epochal event. Martin Landau offers the agents some crucial clues, and several familiar TV faces (including the Lone Gunmen and Mitch Pileggi's indispensable Assistant Director Skinner) turn up briefly to wink knowingly at faithful fans. --David Chute
Good movie My family has recently become huge fans of the X-files TV show (thanks to reruns on the Sci Fi channel), so we were excited to see that they had actually released a movie back in the late 90's. I read several of the bad reviews that this movie received, but we really liked it when we first watched it. True, it's a little different from the TV series in that it was hard for them to try & fit in all of the usual cast members, but overall, we were really surprised at just how much we liked this movie. It was very suspenseful & it kept us rivited to the very end. Can't wait to see the new 2008 movie version as well!
Well-made and involved The story here is very involved, but it never gets too hard to follow. There's a lot here that comes from the TV series, but it's not crucial for you to have seen every episode to understand what's going on. Of course, you probably wouldn't be watching this movie if you hadn't seen at least a little of the series.
The effects are well done. The tone is solid. The characterization is wonderful. This may not make you fall in love with the series, but it is a wonderfully made sci-fi adventure.
I don't know about you, but I now get scared every time I go outside to stand in our oil pool.
The Crucial Decision For nearly all successful television dramas, there comes the conflict of when the show should end. For most of the X-Files' first few seasons, show creator Chris Carter imagined the show running five seasons, then spinning off into a series of motion pictures (much like the original series of Star Trek). However, with the Fifth Season of the X-Files garnering the best ratings in the show's history, it became obvious that the FOX network would do anything it could to bring its most successful hour back.
Now, what does that above statement have to do with this movie? During the promotion of the movie, the creators touted it as giving "all the answers", essentially the be-all, end-all of the X-Files' many plotlines. Because of the show's tremendous popularity, however, the writers/producers could not put all their cards on the table quite yet. Despite clearing up many questions surrounding the Syndicate's involvement with the alien colonists (more specifically, how colonization will occur), this movie did not, by any means, provide ALL the answers, and was heavily criticized (even in these reviews) for it. In fact, just as many loose ends were brought up as were tied off.
So, why does this movie still get a five-star rating from me? Because, despite its false-advertising, the movie still contains every aspect that made previous seasons of the X-Files so great: thrilling action, mind-bending plots, and witty, sardonic humor. Plus, as fans found out in the next two seasons, the X-Files still had many more great stories to tell. Ending the series with this movie would have cheated its loyal fans out of some more great drama. Though I will admit that the show drastically changed when it returned after the movie, many viewers (including myself) find the later seasons to be just as thrilling as the earlier fare.
Overall, this is a great movie for any fan of science-fiction. As unbelievable as this may sound, this movie was the first X-Files fare of any kind I ever saw (imagine my confusion!), yet it still hooked me enough to become an avid follower, proving that you don't have to be an uber-fan to appreciate this film.
The series should have ended with this movie Aliens, viruses, secret government entities, genetic engineering, assasinations and the rest of the staples of the X-files TV serial are all in this movie, tied together into a fairly cogent and actually quite believable storyline. And like a good movie based of a TV serial, multiple arcs are closed while none are opened. Specifically, this movie sees the deaths of two important characters from the serial (not Fox or Scully of course), and the existence of aliens on earth is confirmed once and for all in the movie's climatic ending. The style and substance of the movie mirrors the TV show; no sex, swearing or blood, and one short scene of near romance. Hence both movie and serial are appropriate for the same audiences. For those who need to know, the movie does not touch upon Mulder's sister.
All in all, good sci-fi, good action and good storytelling.
Why A Decade Later I Still Have Rancor Toward This Film You might want to pull up a chair, this is a long, self-interested review.
Back in the autumn '07 I saw this p'ticular movie in a bargain bin, on sale for a dollar, and although I still remembered my loathing for the way its makers manipulated so many of us into flocking to our local multiplex, only to rip us off our ticket price, I still bought it on a "wonder if it was really that bad?" basis. And now that I've at last made time to see it, guess what...it's still THAT BAD.
To think, back in the late-`90's I spent months looking forward to this film. There was once a time, after all, when The X-Files was a big deal, and when I was in college, it was the one TV show no one ever seemed to miss. Instead of a project equal to my and so many others' eager anticipation, we were "treated" to a movie that was terrible in every way. Filled with clichés (please, why must every on-screen bomb have those little red numbers on the front counting down the time till detonation?), this movie made an even greater muddle of already muddled conspiracy theories that by then were starting to drag down one of the most suspenseful, intelligent, and altogether cool series in broadcast history.
Although Fight The Future (yes the "X-Files Movie" actually had a name) promised to reveal all or at least much that we'd been squirming to know, this stinko actually backfired and showed that not only was the truth not out there, but The X-Files was actually a ship plowing haphazardly through choppy waters, no one at the wheel.
As we left the theater, my friend said to me, "They're just making this stuff up as they go, aren't they?"
"Yep, Jackie," I replied, "they are." (There, I used your name in a review.)
And for the first time, ladies and gentlemen, the light of Heaven shone down onto New England, and we saw the Emperor was stark naked.
Okay, kidding aside, I truly think the release of this film was when The X Files jumped the sharks and the beginning of the end to this once ice-hot TV show can be traced to this one goshawful motion picture.
Why after so long do I still feel so much antipathy for a banal movie? Because it was bad. Yes, truly bad as a stand-alone work, and much worse as a disgrace to the one-time great series. Just absolutely hideous!
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