The Truth Is Still Out There as Chris Carter Reclaims ‘The X-Files’

There are places in my heart for great movies, good movies, and even movies that are so bad they’re good. But what’s frustrating is the bad-good movie. A film that makes a noble attempt, comes close, but narrowly fails on its merits. A movie where I can glimpse greatness underneath, where a classic cinema moment could have been just one rewrite away.Every once in a while, we get to find the missing storytelling pieces and see them brought together anew. So it is with “The X-Files,” where series creator Chris Carter is set to release a new director’s cut of his second movie adaptation of the legendary paranormal sci-fi TV series. “The X-Files: I Want to Believe – Vrach Frankenshteyn,” which Mr. Carter directed and was originally released in 2008, is a paranormal “monster-of-the week” tale unconnected to the labyrinthine conspiracies of the show’s other “E.T.”-focused storyline.In the run-up to the release, Mr. Carter has come clean about what may have been missing from the version I saw in theaters. In doing so, he’s inadvertently exposing what’s wrong with today’s fan-centric entertainment culture.“I Want to Believe” picks up six years after the last episode of the TV series. There are no crashed flying saucers or cigarette smoking men in sight. Ex-Agent Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) is a fugitive from the FBI, which seems content to leave him hiding in plain sight on a farm outside Washington, DC where Dr. Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) pays him surreptitious visits. But the two ex-agents are called in to work an active serial kidnapper case in snowbound West Virginia — highlighted by a virtuoso visual in the film’s opening, in which an endless line of blue parka-clad FBI agents canvass a spotless white wintry vista.This is the film I wanted to see, and the kind of “X-Files” we rarely got to see on television: Large in scope, viscerally portrayed, with propulsive storytelling. Unfortunately, the film has a hard time holding on to that kind of forward momentum throughout its runtime.This is despite a committed performance from Billy Connolly in the tricky role of a pedophile priest possibly having psychic visions. Also excellent is Amanda Peet, whose mere presence could make filing income taxes seem delightful, playing the FBI agent on the missing person’s case. Rapper Xzibit is also in the FBI, for some reason.I found the villain of the movie, Janke Dacyshyn, played by Callum Keith Rennie, dull and his masterplan less awe-inspiring than the interplanetary deceptions pursued by the Syndicate cabal in the series and first movie. But maybe we were missing something.In recent interviews, Mr. Carter has said he was attempting to restore the horror in the picture and retell Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein” story — hence the sub-subtitle “Vrach Frankenshteyn.” And Carter acknowledges fans of the X-Files were disappointed in the first theatrical version of “I Want to Believe,” as well as the continuation of the series that aired in 2016 and 2018.“There’s a point at which you need to deliver on a promise,” Mr. Carter told the Hollywood Reporter. “And I wanted to deliver more than the promise. I wanted to give them what they least expected.”His instincts were right. In an environment where creators and writers routinely rewrite after falling for fan bait on social media, when everything from a long-delayed “Indiana Jones” sequel to the latest Marvel movie undergoes tens of millions of dollars in reshoots, it’s refreshing there is still one creative in Hollywood who stubbornly sticks to his vision. Even if it took him 18 years.In the Hollywood Reporter interview, Mr. Carter also unveiled a familiar slayer of creative dreams responsible for a muddled movie. The studio, which wanted a PG-13 crowd pleaser but got an R-rated thriller in Mr. Carter’s first cut. “There was, let me call it, mild outrage that we had not delivered a PG-13 movie,” Mr. Carter said. “It was a tense discussion, and we agreed to cut it down to the version that we’d apparently promised them.”The Motion Picture Association demanded further cuts to get the film to a PG-13 rating, Mr. Carter said. “So my feeling is that the movie became a relationship heavy movie,” Mr. Carter said. “The scares were second to that. I wanted to go back and put in the scares.”Not that there’s anything wrong with the relationship between Mulder and Scully in the film. After years of episodes that were sometimes frustratingly opaque, after broken waterbeds and intimate discussions in darkened bedrooms, it was nice to see Mulder and Scully behave like a normal couple. Their loving kiss at the end of the movie was a catharsis 15 years in the making.But here’s the thing about the film: I shouldn’t have simply got everything that I wanted. Because the film, the series, and the X-Files world is Chris Carter’s vision — not mine.It’s refreshing to see a creator willing to go to war so that his vision of a story holds true and too have the confidence in insisting on emotional authenticity for characters he birthed.That used to be the way movies were made. It’s been dismissed as auteur theory, drowned in the bathtub by Hollywood after the white whales of “Heaven’s Gate,” “The Postman,” or “John Carter of Mars.” The idea of giving a filmmaker a blank canvas and trusting him to create something iconic is anathema to 21st Century Hollywood. With streaming algorithms offering the most precise datasets on viewing decisions, the temptation to bend to an audience’s perceived will is overwhelming for creators who simply want their product to make it to the screen.That’s a betrayal of the fundamental relationship between artist and audience. The creator seeks to reveal essential truths and tell memorable stories — both of which often rely on subverting audience expectations.Great art should stimulate irrepressible joy — which is itself the language of sudden, happy surprise. Audiences are neutering their own curiosity and denying themselves that joy when they demand their art be reconfigured to serve them and meet their expectations. I can’t wait to see Mr. Carter’s vision for the same reason I loved his show, to get an opportunity to watch great characters pursue a hidden truth under unexpected dramatic situations.I’m not sure if this movie’s re-release will mean creative storytelling is making a comeback. But I want to believe.“The X-Files: I Want to Believe – Vrach Frankenshteyn,” begins streaming on Hulu and Disney+ on Friday, August 14.

The Truth Is Still Out There as Chris Carter Reclaims ‘The X-Files’

The Truth Is Still Out There as Chris Carter Reclaims ‘The X-Files’

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