2008 • 15 • 104 mins • £19.99 (one disc); £22.99 (two discs) •
24 November

Director: Chris Carter
Starring: David Duchovny, Gillian Anderson, Billy Connolly
Extras:

The laziest way to review a film spin-off from a television series is to claim it’s an extended episode of the TV show. But that’s exactly what this is. Not even a particularly good episode – just an average, mid-season placeholder. At 45 minutes, it might have just kept you awake. Padded out to feature length with pointless dialogue and meandering plot detours, it‘s psychological warfare.

So you get some snowy nonsense involving a psychic, kiddie-fiddling priest; Russian Frankensteins; kidnapped FBI agents and Mulder and Scully being enticed out of retirement in the most undramatic fashion imaginable (“Wanna help the FBI if they drop all charges against you?” “Yeah, why not?”) It’s exquisitely shot and sporadically atmospheric, but a lack of action and FX means it never feels in the slightest cinematic.

Duchovny and Anderson have lost any chemistry they once had, with Anderson especially battling against a script that turns her into a whinging shrew. And the clunky religious undertones (“I want to believe” – geddit?) which are supposedly there to give the film some depth are delivered with a kind of embarrassed shrug. But most of all, it’s just very, very dull.

Extras: One-disc edition: hurrah for snow! Various shots of actors sliding all over the place on the blooper reel are more fun than the usual fluffed lines. There’s also Chris Carter nattering about environmentally-friendly filming, a low key commentary from Carter and co-writer Frank Spotnitz, a music video, a feature on the make-up FX and a few deleted scenes (you can’t help wishing there’d been more). Two-disc edition: as above, plus a feature-length Making Of, a massive gallery (photos, concepts, storyboards) and a digital copy of the film.

Dave Golder