X-Files: I Want to Believe

(M) David Duchovny, Gillian Anderson, Billy Connelly

Fans who have been scouring the internet for clues about this latest film may well be disappointed now that it has finally arrived. This stand-alone film really adds nothing to the ongoing storyline about whether “the truth is out there”.

Intriguingly titled “I Want to Believe” there are no alien conspiracies and no abductions. This time Scully brings the reclusive Mulder out from forced retirement to investigate the disappearance of an FBI agent, in the process uncovering a gruesome serial killer.

Standard clichés of the genre and some rather odd casting (Billy Connolly as a priest with a rather detestable past) make this an underwhelming addendum to the series which finished six years ago.

The main storylines really take a back seat to the relationship between Mulder and Scully — whose soulful looks seem to have progressed into a full-blown live-in relationship.

There is a bit of interesting banter about mediation between faith and science and talk about “the darkness always finding us”, but nothing the series didn’t already hint at.

Sadly, the truth is still out there.

Adrian Drayton