The Daily Newsroom

4:12 p.m.

With many years of X-Files watching experience behind us, we thought it would be easy to mold each of our opinions to fit the two main characters: FBI Agent Fox Mulder, the believer in the paranormal who would extol the good points of the film, and his partner, FBI Agent Dana Scully, the scientist and skeptic, ready to point out the flaws in it.

We were wrong. In grand X-Files fashion, the truth was shrouded in fog and we failed to bring flashlights. In other words, neither of us could form unwavering opinions on either side of the debate. So, here is our attempt at illuminating the simplicity and complexity that was The X-Files: I Want to Believe.

Vicky: Without giving too much away, the movie is about a pedophile priest (Billy Connolly) who supposedly has some psychic connection to the victims of a larger murderous conspiracy that (surprise) involved Russians.

Erinn: The decidedly middle-aged Mulder (David Duchovny) and Scully (Gillian Anderson) are brought in on the case by Agent Dakota Whitney (Amanda Peet) after six years as fugitives from the FBI. Scully is a doctor and Mulder is still hurling pencils at a ceiling, and there is still that undeniable sexual tension, though it has mellowed and deepened over the years. There’s a sick boy, some half-assed relationship issues, and gore that will leave you squirming.

V: The chemistry has not only mellowed but has fizzled, with a few doe-eyed glances here and there. David Duchovny’s puppy-dog attraction is completely absent from the screen, and that, Erinn, makes me squirm.

E: I do not agree with you, Vicky, but nevertheless, I respect your ill-formed opinion. I thought the chemistry was still there, and that he still looked good. I’d take that puppy home. Gillian Anderson looked — and was — amazing. She has grown even more mature and nuanced in her acting during her years away from the series, and it shows. Her eyes told the story when the dialogue didn’t cut it.

V: This I can agree with. The looks she gave ripped my heart out of my ribcage. She’s so believable. If she told me the tooth fairy was broke, I would believe her.

E: However, I felt that Chris Carter (the writer and director) relied too heavily on, and nearly exploited, those sorrowful glances that drew me in along the delicate bridge of her Roman nose and over her finely tempered features. Oh my, I sound like I’m in love.

V: Love is a beautiful thing, but love for Carter’s lack of feature-film directorial experience I do not have.

E: Or for his ambiguous dialogue, which lessened the impact of what could have been a powerful and intimate peek into Mulder’s and Scully’s relationship. Not to mention his choice of camera angles during a scene that I have wanted to witness on the big screen for a long, long time.

V: And what scene do you speak of?

E: We have to let people find out for themselves. In terms of the philosophical themes present — you know, such little things as God, redemption and the ethical boundaries of science — they were brave to cover the material, but I think they took much too big of a bite. They choked like President Bush on the pretzel. Now, as for the plot …

V: It thickens?

E: No, it was quite thin. As with the series, there wasn’t much for me to go on. Scraps of rationed information are not very satisfying to a journalist, especially when you can’t pump the characters on screen for more. For the first part of the movie, I was stoked. The atmosphere is cold, stark and scarily real. But the climax was, well, anticlimactic. Some subplots wove together, sharpening the philosophical edge of the film, but there were also plot holes you could drive a snowplow or row a boat through. Those dangling ends distracted from the questions the filmmakers attempted to pose to the audience, like, how far is too far to go for love?

V: You call them filmmakers? Frank Spotnitz, the TV show’s writer, should be ashamed of his participation in such a dead piece of “art,” if that’s what Carter thinks he wrote.

E: Ouch. That’s harsher than kidnapping Carter and Spotnitz and pulling duct tape off their nipples.

V: It’s true.

E: Are you being vindictive?

V: I am speaking the truth because the X-Philes of the world need to hear it. They want the truth? I’m going to give it to them!

E: The truth hurts. But seeing Mulder and Scully back on the big screen doesn’t.

V: I will say this: Both Duchovny and Anderson delivered performances that were theatrically convincing and nearly heartbreaking. I just wish Carter had given these actors more respect by presenting them a decent, even mediocre script to work with. They worked with the garbage they had, and I applaud them for it.

E: Just seeing them together — characters I have loved since childhood — made the pain more manageable, like Vicodin after a root canal.

V: Yes, seeing Mulder and Scully on the big screen subdued my six-year-long withdrawals from the show. But in all honesty …

E: More honesty?

V: As much as I love The X-Files, and as much I wanted the movie to be the blockbuster I’ve dreamed of, I know that it was not meant to be. Feature films should be just that — feature films. I Want to Believe would have made a lukewarm made-for-TV movie and heck, it would have saved me $11, but I cringe just to think of how it’s doing at the box office now.

E: It’s not doing terribly. As of press time, it’s just behind the Oscars-bound Stepbrothers.

V: I send this forewarning to the X-Philes of the world: If you haven’t already spent your money, save it. Carter fails miserably at everything except this: He knows how to please a shipper, finally.

E: The truth, my fellow philes, is still out there.