THE X-FILES: FIGHT THE FUTURE - Blu-ray (20th Century-Fox 1998) Fox Home Video

After five years as one of the most popular television series in the mid-1990's; The X-Files made its successful transition to the big screen with Rob Bowman’s The X-Files: Fight The Future (1998), which successfully functions as both a stand-alone sci-fi thriller, and a theatrical bridge between Seasons 5 and 6, without actually impacting one’s ability to enjoy the following season if, in fact, the movie is skipped. The X-Files phenomena was at its zenith when 2oth Century-Fox took the gamble on this big screen continuation of the series ‘truth is out there’ leitmotif.  The series had, by this juncture, become a runaway multi-Emmy award-winning franchise, preying upon the mounting paranoia of conspiracy theorists – to make even the most ardent skeptic raise an eyebrow for sincere reconsideration. FBI special agent, Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) is a man compelled to expose the truth about extra-terrestrial life on this planet, and, the rogue agents working within the U.S. government in a vast conspiracy to deny him access to his sister, Samantha – seemingly abducted by aliens when both he and she were still teenagers living at home.

Reuniting with Special Agent Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson), Mulder is, on this big screen excursion, treading an extension of Season Four’s finale. Mulder and Scully respond to a bomb threat at a government building, vaguely reminiscent of the Oklahoma City bombing. In this instance, Mulder believes the innocuous looking structure may house secret documents on alien abductees. Special Agent Darius Michaud (Terry O’Quinn) advises his agents to pull back and evacuate after a bomb threat proves all too real – the titanic explosive device, located and already activated. Although Mulder complies with this direct order, he regrets his decision when a massive explosion decimates the area, reducing the complex to a gigantic cinderblock of rubble. From this uncharacteristic big scale set piece (nothing quite so dramatic ever occurred in The X-Files proper) our story digresses into territory more familiar to X-File aficionados; Scully is stung by a bee carrying a virus that threatens her life. Mulder becomes further embroiled in the government conspiracy to deny all plausibility of the facts. The ominous black ooze (an on-going mystery to those who regularly watched the series) infects a group of children playing in a sand lot in Arizona. This latter incident directly leads agents Mulder and Scully to the discovery of an alien spacecraft buried beneath the polar ice caps.

The TV and film’s writer/producer, Chris Carter and director, Bowman perform a minor miracle with this exhilarating sci-fi thriller - tying up most loose plot points from the television series without alienating film attendees who might otherwise have never watched a single episode. The X-Files: Fight the Future functions as both an addendum to Season Four and its own sci-fi movie. We get chills and mystery and even more disturbing speculations that nevertheless make sense at some basic paranoiac level of ‘wanting to believe’ in creatures from outer space. The chemistry Duchovny and Anderson had on the small screen effortlessly translates to the expansive Panavision screen.  More or less, the picture clicks as it should. Essentially self-contained, Carter’s screenplay, like his series, relies heavily on an unsettling atmosphere and murky foreboding.

Martin Landau, whose looks alone can creep me out, makes a welcomed return as conspiracy theorist, Kurtzweil. He informs Mulder, some of the bombing victims were already dead long before the building imploded. Indeed, the tie-in here goes back to the movie’s prologue, set in North Texas, circa 35,000 B.C. with prehistoric men encountering violent beings in a cave. This leads into the contemporary prologue, still in Texas, after a child falls into the same cave, and the black ooze fills his nose and eye sockets. These alien creatures are presented as a virus, the government sending in its own troop of scientists to quarantine the area and contain the threat – or rather, the leaking of vital information about what is really going on to the outside world. Like the TV franchise that spawned it, the focus here is not on aliens, but the government conspiracy to cover up the truth; Scully and Mulder, grilled by an FBI panel for their fine efforts to reveal all. Stalwarts from the series, William B. Davis’ spooky Cancer Man, the Well-Manicured Man (John Neville) and Director Skinner (Mitch Pileggi) all make welcomed appearances. But Landau gets the lion’s share of mystery here, and plays it to the hilt as only Landau can. The movie also continues to promote the unconsummated ‘love’ between Mulder and Scully. Wisely, Carter never actually brought them together romantically in the series. In the movie, Mulder so obviously cares for Scully we strain towards the screen, hoping for at least a gentle gesture of his genuine affections. Alas, no – and just as well – as the sexual friction between these two is one of the reasons die-hard fans kept on throughout the TV show’s lengthy run.

Scully and Mulder spend a good deal of their investigation gaining entry to a vast and monolithic installation, isolated in the middle of nowhere, involving corn and bees. And herein, Fight the Future runs into only a minor roadblock for those who have otherwise never seen an episode of the TV show, as during the show’s run, Scully and Mulder had more than their share of run-ins with these genetically altered pollen-grazing insects and their toxic fallout if encountered by unsuspecting humans. Nimbly skipping through these sequences, Fight the Future engages us as a verbal jigsaw with a lot of big-budgeted SFX revelations. It’s enough, in fact, to maintain our attention span and the script does not attempt to do too much more. Like so many of the TV episodes in the series, this film is a spook story, told efficiently, but with great restraint. It plays like a lengthier version of a series’ episode, yet has an intelligence and style all its own.

Fox Home Video’s Blu-ray predictably improves in all the ways we would expect from a 1080p transfer. Colors are fully saturated and bold. Contrast levels are ideally realized. Blacks are deep and solid. Whites are pristine. Fine details abound, even during the darkest scenes. The audio is 5.1 DTS and delivers an aggressive spread across all channels. Extras include a brief, though informative featurette on the making of the film, an audio commentary from Chris Carter, deleted scenes and the film’s original theatrical trailer. Recommended!

FILM RATING (out of 5 - 5 being the best)

4

VIDEO/AUDIO

4.5

EXTRAS

2