I learned many, many years ago that when a franchise movie is bad you need to just deal with it. It's one of the most difficult things a person has to do when dealing with the reality of an object they love failing them utterly.

So, yes.  The X-Files: I Want to Believe is bad.  Let's have a spoiler-filled look at how this happened.

I don't want to waste a ton of time reviewing the film... or telling you why it sucks.  Actually, the wonderful Alexandra DuPont of Ain't it Cool News does a GREAT job of telling you why this movie goes wrong.  Unless you see me directly contradict something from that review, consider it a great layout of my opinions (right down the comments about werewolves, Robert Patrick, and that God-forsaken last shot).

Six years ago the greatest television show ever went off the air.  Now, I feel perfectly justified saying that.  When it comes to television, there's some sorta crazy formula of quality balanced over quantity that allows you to be "the best".  The X-Files perfected that.  Don't tell me how awesome Firefly is.  It didn't even have a full season of episodes.  It never had to say, "how do we keep this fresh?"  That doesn't mean it isn't awesome.  It just means it can never be as awesome as The X-Files.  Did the show suffer some as it went on?  Yes.  The mythology episodes became very weak in the middle of the show. When I was younger, I thought the show died an awful death at the departure of Duchovny.  Upon re-viewing the show, this is not the case.  While it isn't as great as the heyday of seasons two through four, (where we truly trusted no one, locked our doors a little more securely and feared the impending alien invasion), it's much better than it is usually credited with being.  The reason we hated it then?  We were damn near told to.  Instead of handling Duchovny's wish to breathe (which, after eight years, wouldn't you want to "try something different?"), FOX TV constantly dicked with us.  "IS THIS THE WEEK MULDER RETURNS!?"  Now, I don't know if Chris Carter's "crap, my stars are leaving" plan of a revolving door Law & Order style cast would have worked, but I will say that Robert Patrick and Annabeth Gish are both solid contributors to the show, and their presence is SEVERLY lacking in the movie.  No doubt 20th Century Fox said "replace those FBI agents with somebody hip... like AMANDA PEET".  *sigh*

But from the very beginning of the end, Duchovny and others said, "we're down for movies".  A whole lotta missteps later (including losing the outline to the super-secret script), and here we are. On the damned 100th anniversary of the FBI, the show that made the Bureau cool makes its big screen return.  Fight the Future (the 1998 film) is like a warm freakin' blanket to me.  No matter how many fine movies come out in the rest of my life, I'm comfortable saying it will always been in my top twenty-five.  So... how did we X-Philes come to the Alexandra DuPont camp on the sequel?

The Hollywood insider "Movieline International Report" said the following to theaters about what to expect this weekend: The popular TV series and highly successful 1998 theatrical release (10/11/98, $30 million opening, $83 million total) has generated interest with over 25 females who were fans of the TV series. Average or better business.
Now, aside from getting the release date of the first movie wrong (that was the DVD release, thank you), we setup that Hollywood intends for this to be a chick flick.  Now, many, many chicks watched The X-Files, but a cheap, $33 million (the reported budget for the movie) chick flick... no.  Not acceptable.

The movie starts right.  The music.  The scrolling "location" text in that bottom left corner.  The creepy vibe.  Sure, whatever the HELL happens with the arm and what-not at the film's outset isn't exactly the creepiest X-File we've ever seen, but it's an okay foundation.  Here we have the goodness.  Chris Carter and Frank Spotnitz truly ask, "what has happened in the past six years?"  And their immediate answer is one of genius.  Scully is finally a doctor, at a Catholic hospital.  She works to save lives, but she is still reeling from the decision to give up her son for his protection.  Mulder has become a bearded hermit, living away from society and clipping out weird stories from newspapers.  He's a sad, sad man... a man who has had everything taken from him.  Both characters are vunerable, lost souls.  And then the FBI comes knocking, offering to drop (bogus) charges (and a sentancing to death) against Mulder if he'll help them find a lost FBI agent.  The PROMISE of this movie is amazing.  Taking a pair of shattered icons on a trip down memory lane.  And they do it SO right.  Mulder can't say no to helping find a missing person, because he owes it to his dead sister!  Scully misses her child, so she immediately hates our weirdo psychic pedophile priest!  Every. Single. Character. Decision. PERFECT.  As a matter of fact, the worst thing to occur in the first thirty minutes of the movie is a tarnishing of the classic Mark Snow musical theme to make the most wacked out George W. Bush joke ever.  I cannot understand this joke for the life of me, and it is NOT a way to reestablish something that IS truly iconic.

From this point on, the "how" of doom starts to become apparent.  The villians aren't creepy enough.  The drama is too soapy.  But mostly?  Chris Carter is the EXACT OPPOSITE of George Lucas.  Now, I know what you're thinking; "that's gotta be a good thing, right?"  Sadly, wrong.  You see, when George returned to Star Wars after hiatus, he said, "I know what's right.  Screw you all.  I am a god."  But Carter has been abused.  The man has barely worked in the past six years.  The end of his show is considered by many a huge failure (and if we're only talking about the HORRIBLE recap episode that is the two-hour finale, then they're right).  I get the feeling that Chris doesn't get his phone calls returned much anymore.  So, he listens to the haters.  "Stand alone episodes are better."  And he makes a stand alone movie.  He listens to the fans.  "Mulder and Scully are truly together."  He listens to the studio.  "Xzibit!"  He listens to everyone.  Because he WANTS it back.  He NEEDS it. 

But there's the problem.  Who are these twenty-five year old women seeing the movie?  They are X-PHILES.  They want to be screwed with!  They want to be shocked and scared!  AND THEY WANT TO BELIEVE!!  There's nobody seeing this movie who doesn't have a pre-formed opinion.  I've heard ten people declare proudly to me since this movie went into production that they had never watched an episode of the series.  They are not gonna see this movie, no matter how many times you tell them it stands alone.  Then there are the people who NEED CLOSURE.  People like me who pray at night that come December 22, 2012 (if you don't know what that date is, sorry) Mulder and Scully will save us from colonization.  And we're split.  We're never getting together.  Example: have you seen the trailer?  There's that shot of the priest on his knees, blood coming from his eyes.  Now, the shot has been darkened in the trailer so that the blood almost looks black.  Like... the black oil, a central part of X-Files mythology.  So, anyone with any background goes, "OH MAN, THE BLACK OIL, SWEET" and is being lied to.  But everyone else is like, "I thought you said stand alone?  WTF?"

And that's where we are.  You can't change that.  You have a fanbase.  I've spent a couple hundred dollars on DVDs.  I'll see any movie that's put out.  And you give me a movie where Skinner only shows up in the last ten minutes, and you replace a role that was probably written for Robert Patrick with Xzibit.  And you do this the week after The Dark Knight so that you get the toughest, highest-expecting critics and crowds possible.  Great freakin' work 20th Century Fox.  No, really.  You have one of the most loyal fanbases in television history... a fanbase that truly helped to shape the show, and you're worried about appealing to somebody else after nine years of faithful viewing?  *double sigh*

As the movie drags on (and it really does drag), you keep wishing for something, anything to happen, but it can't.  The studios don't want it to.  Also, while Carter is in many ways a genius, he is no spectacular director.  Give us back Rob Bowman in the director's chair, please.  We're subjected to so many things that just don't work as this film goes along.  We don't have the money for any action near the film's end, so there really isn't any.  They throw a weird attraction plot in with Amanda Peet that about drives me bonkers.  And while the initial concepts for the "scary" plot are good (both the spiritual and scientific elements) we have to pull them off with crap.  Scully wants to perform an expirimental stem cell procedure?  She has to LOOK IT UP ON GOOGLE.  And then the revealing moment for what the spooky plot is comes from her finding that all of what she found on Google didn't print.  The same lament could be put to the film's romantic plot.  The first moment they show the dynamic duo laying in bed got a gasp from the audience (although for the life of me, I can't figure out why... I mean, are there really people who didn't get the memo that they were sleeping together in the last three seasons?), but then after a decade and a half of working well together they get into an argument and talk like a spat is enough to break them up.  I mean, how I see it, these characters have caused so much pain and grief for each other over the years but gotten through it together that their relationship should be the most solid relationship in the history of cinema.  Sadly this doesn't seem to be the case.

This movie lacks triumph.  You wanna talk triumph?  Watch the end of Fight the Future where a simple TELEGRAM makes crowds cheer aloud as the film goes to credits.  When this movie was over, people didn't know what to do.  They were like, "um... it's over?  Really?  That's it?"  We've been told by this show time and time again to expect more.  And to not give us any indication as to the current outlook on the title's sake (the X-files), is a pretty bad plan as well.  Heck, Amanda Peet's dialog reminding us of how many WAY COOLER psychics we've seen over the years of the show doesn't help anything either.  There's so much "meh" at the end of this movie, it's hard to describe.  And the epic-bad final shot.  I don't know what the demographic that needs to see Mulder and Scully row off into the sunny world is... but fuck you, demographic.  I mean, seriously.  I want these characters to be happy as much as the next guy, but that's a load of crap.  THEY WAVED AT THE CAMERA.  Like some damned fan fiction joke. 

I think the most painful thing about this movie was how much I needed more.  If I thought "The Truth" (the series finale) was a bad ending to a masterpiece... I Want to Believe is a doggone AWFUL ending.  It does not address the items that need addressing.  There is no triumph.  There is no victory.  Heck, I'd even take despair!  But there's nothing.  "And... we went on vacation".  No.  Screw that. We need another movie.  We need to get some of the old writers involved.  And we need to push for something more.  The X-Files damn near FOUNDED the current era of good science fiction TV and movies.  And it should go out with a bang, not a whimper.