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47 X-Files: I Want to Believe, The
45 Zombie Strippers

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

X-Files: I Want to Believe, The
20th Century Fox


6.3

based on 33 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 126 votes
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FILM:

The X Files

MPAA RATING: PG-13 for violent and disturbing content and thematic material

Starring David Duchovny, Gillian Anderson, Xzibit, Amanda Peet, Billy Connolly, Callum Keith Rennie, and Adam Godley

The supernatural thriller is a stand-alone story in the tradition of some of the show's most acclaimed and beloved episodes, and takes the always-complicated relationship between Fox Mulder and Dana Scully in unexpected directions. Mulder continues his unshakable quest for the truth, and Scully, the passionate, ferociously intelligent physician, remains inextricably tied to Mulder's pursuits. (20th Century Fox)

GENRE(S):	Mystery \| Sci-fi
WRITTEN BY:	Chris Carter Frank Spotnitz
DIRECTED BY:	Chris Carter
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: December 2, 2008 Theatrical: July 25, 2008
RUNNING TIME:	minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	USA \| Canada

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

The movie works like thrillers used to work, before they were required to contain villains the size of buildings.

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

Knowing nothing about "X-Files" is no impediment to appreciating this for the well-acted, adult piece of work that it is.

Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer

Billy Connolly, as a scurvy priest who may or may not be a visionary, steals the acting honors.

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

Duchovny gives a nicely shaped performance here -- he still has the ability to suggest the boyish eagerness beneath Fox's blasé demeanor. But the movie really belongs to Anderson.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

The Carter and Spotnitz's credit, such weighty concerns aren't the stuff of most mainstream genre movies. But they're also not sufficiently gripping to transform a middling thriller into something truly provocative or haunting.

Miami Herald Connie Ogle

I Want to Believe provides a welcome reminder of what made Carter's franchise a pop-culture gem.

New York Daily News Elizabeth Weitzman

The truth is, the mystery pales next to the best "X-Files" plots. But fans will appreciate sly references to past episodes, an unexpected appearance from an old friend and the still-poignant bond our heroes share.

Film Threat Rory L. Aronsky

Please Chris Carter, bring us X-Files fans back to where we belong. If there is to be another movie, and there damn well better be, return us to our beloved mythology.

Empire Kim Newman

An okay paranormal mystery, with solid work from the regulars – but please Mr Carter, next time, could we have liver-eating mutants or post-modern comedy like the really good episodes of The X Files?

Time Richard Corliss

For the uninitiated, The X Files: I Want to Believe may seem as musty and forbidding as one of those dank secrets that Mulder and Scully were forever digging up from some backyard, or fetid swamp, or their own aching hearts.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Travis Nichols

Does nothing so much as stir up a pining for the show in its prime -- a darkly imaginative and wonderfully weird thing -- though it is always nice to see old friends, however mellowed by age they turn out to be.

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

Older and sadder, Mulder and Scully are no longer sure they've got the energy to even ask if the truth is still out there. And it feels as if Carter is skeptical, too.

Chicago Reader J.R. Jones

The problem is that only a fan would be inclined to tolerate this dunderheaded mystery.

Portland Oregonian Marc Mohan

Worst of all, not once does Mulder answer his cell phone to hear those immortal lines: "It's Scully. There's been another death."

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

In not knowing who it needs to please, I Want to Believe pleases no one.

USA Today Claudia Puig

It feels like a wan version of the show -- one that has lost its otherworldly edge.

Slate Dana Stevens

The problem with the movie's semisupernatural crime plot, though, isn't that the resolution is completely outlandish; it's that the outlandishness is insufficiently grounded in pseudoscience.

Variety Brian Lowry

The warming glow of nostalgia only goes so far, with one's level of forgiveness likely dictated by where they reside along the "X-Files" fan continuum.

Washington Post Hank Stuever

A taut, well-acted, not very scary, not very hard to figure out serial-killer mystery.

Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips

The story is both a muddle and a drag.

The Hollywood Reporter Justin Lowe

Overall, the film plays like an improbably skewed but comparatively routine criminal procedural that would have served the original show well as an extended season opener or sweeps-week contender.

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

Anderson, who's turned Brit in a number of TV series and films, including "Bleak House" and "The Last King of Scotland," is compelling in her white lab coat and surgical scrubs, and she brings some real tenderness to her tete-a-tetes with Mulder.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

An exercise in mediocrity. It's curious how little of the TV series' charm and appeal can be found in this uneven, plodding excuse for a reunion.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey

The story is shockingly ordinary. The movie plays like an extended mediocre episode of the X-Files TV show or, for that matter, even a contemporary crime series such as CSI.

New York Post Lou Lumenick

Atmospheric and moves briskly, but it's basically TV writ large.

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

The whole enterprise suffers from tired blood.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Nathan Rabin

Carter and his underachieving cohorts have seldom given cultists less to believe.

The New York Times Manohla Dargis

Baggy, draggy, oddly timed and strangely off the mark, The X-Files: I Want to Believe is the generally bad-news follow-up to the show’s first feature-film incarnation, "The X-Files."

Boston Globe Wesley Morris

The truth is, indeed, still out there. And when Carter finds it, may he heed its wisdom: Let go.

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

We waited 10 years for a sequel to the movie version of "The X-Files" – and the best Chris Carter could do is The X-Files: I Want to Believe?

LA Weekly Scott Foundas

The truth is still out there, like an unsold lawn chair at a garage sale, in this just plain lousy second big-screen outing for erstwhile FBI agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully.

Los Angeles Times Jan Stuart

Even at its stride, "The X-Files" was a load of malarkey. But it was thoughtful malarkey and compulsively watchable. One could say the same about the first two-thirds of The X-Files: I Want to Believe before it spins out of control and into a delirious plane of awfulness.

Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov

They've become deadly dull, these two once-keen buckers of bureaucratic BS, and watching them interact on screen is akin to having your pleasure centers removed by knobby little aliens whose only knowledge of mankind comes from Jack Webb's stoically unvarying television incarnations.

The average user rating for this movie is 6.3 (out of 10) based on 126 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Hyper S gave it a7:
A movie that falls short of the high expectations one can imagine would be placed on a X-Files movie by its fans, but as a typical crime thriller it is decent enough to earn a 7 or so. The movie would have benefited from a bigger plot line... a governmental conspiracy or something, but instead decided to take a simple black market approach with a tiny bit of religion mixed in. Reading some of the reviews I anticipated a boring love story between Mulder and Scully, but really their relationship was merely probed in an unusual way in that we skip by the awkward tense unexplored romantic relationship in the TV series and skip right to the sex apparently. Yet, I'm still not sure exactly what their relationship was in the movie. Weird.

David F gave it a6:
I had high hopes for this film, but this was just an extended episode of X-files, and not a particularly interesting one. I found it very predictable and unimaginative. Still worth seeing.

Tony E. gave it a7:
Finally a sequel! But like me, a lot has changed in the interim. It didn't feel like a true X-File movie, more like a low budget B-side lost episode of the show. It's all there though: Scully's skepticism, Mulder's poster and seeds, a pedophile with blood seeping eyes. All in all, it is worthy of a viewing (once).

Harry gave it a5:
Umm.... they did what with people :o i enjoyed it and it was a nice watch while waiting for step brothers to come on but I can almost promise ill never re watch it, one time was enough.

Tony gave it a3:
What a let down. There's nothing X-files in this movie besides Mulder and Scully. Where are the government conspiracies? Where are the sci-fi mysteries? where are the godamn aliens? It's really sad that they released this movie after such a long wait from the fans for a Great X-files come back, they completly missed the mark with this sub-par crime investigation type of movie barely worthy of your average CSI tv show.

Lloyd R. gave it a0:
In I want to believe the writter need to go back an do rewrite your audience was expecting an Alien of some type not a rehash of Frankinstein. I'm not wasting my money on another Mulder & Scully. The writer needs more excitement.

Fabio C. gave it an8:
A good movie for X-Files fans... you won't find aliens and conspiracies in it but C.Carter decided to explore and focus on the other great theme of the X-Files TV series, that is the Mulder/Scully relationship. A more complicated and intricated plot would probably have diverted attention from what Chris [Carter] and Frank [Spotnitz] thought had to be the heart of this movie. It's a good old school thriller, surely not as bad as someone is describing it.

X-Files: I Want to Believe, The 20th Century Fox

X-Files: I Want to Believe, The
20th Century Fox