For the sake of disclosure, I’m the kind of fan of “The X-Files” who has already completed this, a LEGO set dedicated to fans of Chris Carter’s influential hit. (And, don’t worry, I bought it in time to get the Scully’s Lab Gift With Purchase.) So while I may be the fish in a barrel for a recut version of 2008’s much-derided “The X-Files: I Want to Believe” (a film that it feels worth noting Roger always defended), it feels like few other people are even going to watch it. It’s not exactly a wild overhaul a la “Blade Runner” or “Kingdom of Heaven,” as much as it is a tinkering, one of those rare director’s cuts that’s actually shorter than the theatrical original. If you haven’t seen the theatrical version since it flopped at the multiplex, you’re unlikely to even be able to discern the differences. With that in mind, this is for the fans, those of us eagerly awaiting the Ryan Coogler reboot of this universe, as well as the next LEGO set.
In retrospect, the very existence of “I Want to Believe” is a bit insane. Rather than return to the alien mythology that shaped so much of what people think of when they consider the FOX hit, creator Chris Carter instead chose to deliver what’s basically a two-parter monster-of-the-week episode. Was it because so many of those episodes turned out so well on the show? Possibly. It’s more likely that Carter just wanted to explore themes about faith—always a major part of the series—through a story that involved the supernatural instead of the extraterrestrial.
“I Want to Believe” opens with a disgraced priest named Father Joe (an effectively subdued Billy Connolly) leading a group of FBI agents to a field, where they uncover a human arm buried in the snow. It turns out that Joe is a psychic, and he’s been having visions of a serial killer who is connected to this arm. It also turns out that Joe was a serial pedophile, an aspect of Carter’s script that never quite works in either version, as the film doesn’t quite wrestle with the complex morality of trying to redeem such a monstrous soul. Joe is instead a dividing point for Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) and Fox Mulder (David Duchovny), the former greeting his visions with predictable skepticism and the latter embracing them as truth.
From their very first scene together, as Scully approaches Mulder to bring him back into this case, one is reminded of one of the greatest strengths of this franchise: the chemistry between Duchovny and Anderson. The pair became more than just “the skeptic and the believer,” and by this point the actors have so much shared history that their interplay becomes one of the film’s greatest strengths. In particular, Anderson can do so much with a sigh or a smile, a reminder of how subtly brilliant an actress she often is.
If there’s a flaw in their dynamic, it’s one of imbalance in that Mulder doesn’t actually get much of an arc here, his beliefs proven right again. It’s really Scully’s story, especially as the Father Joe arc influences her work with a terminally ill child, one that she’s trying to save despite the belief by her superiors that it’s time to let go. Sadly, Carter doesn’t cut one of the film’s goofier moments wherein the incredibly smart Scully actually Googles “stem cell research” to figure out her next medical steps.
As for differences in this cut, it’s really just streamlining beats here and there to quicken the pace, and reinserting material he claims was censored in 2008. Carter adds some more gore to the final scenes, although, again, only those who know this movie by heart will really notice. It’s one of those director’s cuts that’s more a tightening than an overhaul, and one wonders if it would even exist if not to ride the wave of this franchise’s increasing popularity as the reboot enters production.
As was increasingly the case over the run of the show, dialogue is Carter’s biggest problem: “You could be right, Scully. You could be right. But what if you’re wrong?” Too many exchanges like this sound like a parody of “The X-Files,” a problem that hampered Carter’s FOX reboot, too, but his gift for striking visuals and breakneck plotting overcomes the clichés.
Alongside the nostalgic bump of this release, it’s just refreshing to see a brutal, standalone thriller for adults, one that recalls films from the ‘70s and ‘80s, instead of the CGI-heavy flicks for teens that dominate the culture today. It’s almost as if the prevalence of true-crime stories in the podcast and streaming spheres has overshadowed the possibility for fictional storytelling of serial killers and the men and women who catch them. I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one who misses that kind of film fiction. Maybe it will return. I want to believe.
