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  Matt
  
Willis
The X-Files
USA, 1998
[Rob Bowman]
David Duchovny, Gillian Anderson, Mitch Pileggi, Martin Landau
Action / Mystery / Sci-Fi
  
Picking up spectacularly where the 6th season left off, the first (?) X-Files movie starts with a bang, literally, when a large building in Dallas explodes in a quite magnificent show of model building (and model destruction). With Agents Mulder and Scully already on the case it's not long before an extra-terrestrial connection is ascertained and things start to be revealed, destroyed, shot up etc. All the TV regulars are here, AD Skinner, The Cigarette Smoking Man, Well-Manicured Man et al and with them come many revelations and new questions, something the show excels in. Generally speaking though, if you don't follow the show then this movie has little to offer you except some great effects and a reasonably stand-alone, albeit complicated, plot structure. You can stop reading now.

David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson slide right into their roles with ease and grace and are quietly superb as the FBI pairing who's tireless snooping once again causes major problems for the shadowy 'syndicate', a sinister organization of paramount importance. Housewives favourite Mitch Pileggi returns with a smaller-than-usual role as Walter Skinner and so it is left to the leads and the 'Deep Throat'-esque Martin Landau to move the plot along and keep it as all-encompassing and impossibly-complicated as before. In all reality it's just a really big episode, one which admittedly deals with far more important issues and has a gigantic budget, but an episode all the same. Thats where the brilliance lies as you the audience are immediately confronted with something so similar and comforting you feel right at home.

The plot really is impossible to describe as there's now 6 years of it, but in essence the black oil is found in Texas and a special ops team is sent in to quarantine the area, pump it out and combat the spread of rumours. This they do but not without a few whispers sneaking out. One of these is given to a jaded and beliefless Mulder by in-the-know Doctor Alvin Kurtzweil (Landau). This sets him off on an unsanctioned search through Texas for the mysterious and deadly liquid which winds him up in a cornfield in the middle of the desert. Suffice to say it would be impossible and annoying for me to describe any more so I'll leave it there. In conclusion this movie is a must-see for any fans of
The X-Files but would be a difficult watch for any part-timers, you have once again been warned.
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