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X-Files: Fight the Future Stars:David Duchovny, Gillian Anderson. dir: Rob Bowman Hollywood has been giving us quite a spanking lately. Every couple months, it launches meteors at us, sends hordes of aliens to enslave us, unleashes monsters to eat us, and finds cool ways to destroy Manhattan over and over again. The common thread: stuff blowing up. Then, there is X-Files: Fight the Future, the slick new conspiracy thriller that dishes out creepy aliens and fiery explosions with the best of them - but doesn't rely on these effects. Instead, the tension is created by the plot and its frightening implications. While an elite group of white men control the governments of the world, FBI agents Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) struggle to uncover the truth about this group's involvement with an alien race that plans to colonize the earth. Fight the Future is the culmination of Mulder's five-year search for this elusive "truth" on the "X-Files" TV show. This is not to say that you have to know the intricate plot of the TV show to enjoy Fight the Future. You won't exactly be qualified to wear the official "X-Files" pocket protector just from seeing the movie, since some elements of the story have been left out to avoid the bewilderment the show wreaks on the world every Sunday night, but you'll learn what you need to know and you'll see what makes Chris Carter, the creator of the show and writer of the movie, one of Hollywood's best storytellers. Carter gets his material from the news that frightens us every day, then makes it even more terrifying by playing on the audience's paranoia and distrust of the government. For example, he doesn't worry about breaking the Empire State Building in half - instead, he gives us a terrorist bomb in a Federal building, a shocking reminder of the thriller movie we live every day of our lives. And in true "X-Files" fashion, that bomb wasn't put there by some rag-tag militia group. Carter takes the truths we accept as a given - that our government is there to protect us, that we are safe in an ambulance, that we understand the nature of our world - and turns them upside down, creating fear that doesn't quite stay in the theatre. Director Rob Bowman, who worked on many of the shows as well, makes the transition to the big screen with no problem. In one especially terrifying shot, where Mulder is climbing through an alien structure and one missed step seems sure to spell doom, Bowman uses subtle camera movement to instill vertigo on the audience. For a moment, it's hard for the audience, like Mulder in the scene, to tell which way is up. To accommodate viewers unfamiliar with the show's mythology, characters like Krychek, Mulder's sister, and the shape-shifting bounty hunter were left out of the film. It would have been nice to see Krychek reunited with his old friend the black oil, but I was glad that the movie didn't go out of its way to include all the characters, as the show often does. Duchovny's portrayal of Mulder's moment of "truth" is unforgettable, but it seems to have cost Scully her part in the movie - her character is rather weak here, and those who don't watch the show probably wouldn't think that she could ever stand up for herself. Carter's sense of humor shines in his big screen debut, like when Mulder urinates on an Independence Day poster in the alley or Scully delivers her characteristic understatement at just the right moment. Although the dialogue is mostly brilliant, as one might expect from Carter, it sometimes doesn't know when to stop. Mulder's deadpan wisecracking works to an extent, but there are several times when silence would be golden. We actually see very little of the aliens in Fight the Future, but they are frightening nonetheless. The terror here relies on our two greatest fears - fear of the unknown, and fear of what our government doesn't tell us. -Jay |
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