🎬 The X-Files: I Want to Believe (2008) — Review
sighs even deeper than last time
Let’s start by showing y’all the trailers, shall we?

📽️ Trailer

Watch the trailer here if you’re feeling brave.
Be warned: it lies. It promises mystery, suspense, and a comeback. What it delivers? Discount Lifetime thriller with a Fox Mulder sticker slapped on it.

⚠️ Content Warning:
This film’s plot heavily involves a convicted pedophile. If this subject matter is upsetting, triggering, or just not something you want to engage with today, I fully understand — feel free to skip this one. Your comfort comes first.

And if you still have respect and love for Mulder, then trust me… you ain’t gonna wanna read this one.



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🧊 Non-Spoiler Plot Overview
Years after the X-Files division closed, Mulder is hiding out in a beard while Scully plays medical drama lead at a Catholic hospital. When a woman vanishes and a psychic former priest (who’s also a convicted pedophile) claims to know her location, the FBI drags Mulder out of retirement.
There are missing limbs, medical experiments, and what may or may not be divine visions.
Spoiler-free summary? This isn’t an X-Files movie. This is a snowy episode of Criminal Minds with a $5 conspiracy filter slapped on it.


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🧍 Character Rundown

Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) – A shell of his former self. Brooding? Yes. Skeptical of the government? Barely. Feeling bad for a convicted child predator? Unfortunately, yes. It’s baffling.

Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) – Trapped in her own Grey’s Anatomy side plot about a dying child and ethics. No aliens, no conspiracies, just… exhaustion.

Father Joe (Billy Connolly) – The psychic priest/pedophile. Yep. That’s the character. And somehow the movie wants us to pity him.

Two FBI agents we don’t care about – One of them is Amanda Peet. They’re bland. Moving on.



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⏳ Pacing / Episode Flow
This movie drags like it’s pulling a corpse uphill in a blizzard. Which… ironically, is what’s literally happening in the plot.
It starts slow. Then gets slower. Then stays slow.
Every time you think something X-Files-ish might happen, the film pivots back to Scully moping in a hallway or Mulder making ethical excuses for psychic creepers.


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✅ Pros

Snowy location – The cold, desolate setting gives off a genuinely spooky, bleak vibe. You could throw this on in October just for the atmosphere.

Some creepy undertones – Dismembered bodies, unethical experiments, weird visions — there’s a skeleton of a horror movie here. A deeply buried one.



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❌ Cons

The snowy location – While it looks cool, it’s just an empty white void after an empty white void. It becomes visually repetitive and emotionally distant, much like the script.

This is not an X-Files film – No aliens. No black oil. No Syndicate. No overarching mythology. Just organs in boxes and mood swings.

Mulder’s character is unrecognizable – Feeling sympathy for a known predator? That is not the Mulder we followed for nine seasons.

Scully is sidelined – She’s stuck in a completely disconnected subplot with a dying child and Catholic guilt.

No chemistry – Between the characters, the plot threads, or even the scenes.

Feels like it was made by people who never watched a single episode of The X-Files – Every scene lacks the tension, mystery, or intrigue that made the show iconic.

Controversial and tonally disturbing – The film’s attempts to humanize a child predator and make Mulder emotionally invested in his visions is tone-deaf at best, offensive at worst.

Also, the film completely misses the mark on how to make an X Files related project, this feels leas like The X Files and more like a procedural cop show.

Last thing, let’s just talk about the actual plot for a second — because apparently, someone decided The X-Files needed to be a Frankenstein movie now? This isn’t aliens, shadowy government conspiracies, or even psychic brainworms. No, it’s head transplants. Head. Transplants. In 2008. Like someone watched Re-Animator and thought, “What if we did that… but sadder?”

The entire medical horror subplot — stolen limbs, body-swapping surgery, experimental life extension — it doesn’t feel like an X-File. It feels like it wandered in from a grimy, Eastern European straight-to-DVD horror flick. There’s nothing supernatural, nothing cosmic, and certainly nothing mysterious about it. Just a very human horror story, done with zero subtlety and none of the moral complexity the show was known for.

Instead of myth arc brilliance or creepy, monster-of-the-week tension, we get an underground organ-swapping Frankenstein cult and a convicted pedophile psychic who has visions about it. This isn’t “I want to believe.” This is “I want to bleach my brain.”


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🧠 Final Thoughts
This movie feels like walking into an empty room expecting a surprise party and finding a medical ethics debate instead.
There’s no “X” in these files. There’s no sense of scale, no conspiracy, no mystery that means anything. The entire plot could’ve been solved by local law enforcement in any procedural crime show.
They took the world of alien viruses, secret cabals, and apocalyptic threats… and gave us organ trafficking and a priest with visions.

The only reason this thing isn’t a 0 is because it has snow, and it’s just spooky enough to pass as background noise in October — or if you’re having a good day and need it ruined.


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⭐ Rating
2/10


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⚠️ Spoiler Warning
If you’re brave enough to dive into the plot now, be prepared. It gets… dumb.


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💀 Spoilers
The entire mystery is about people being abducted and having their body parts removed. But plot twist: it’s for a Russian Frankenstein-esque experiment where they’re trying to do a head transplant.
Yes.
Head.
Transplant.
This is the big reveal. No aliens, no ancient tech, no supernatural plot — just pure dumb science gone wrong.

The psychic visions? They’re not even explained. And again — the movie wants you to emotionally bond with a convicted pedophile priest. Mulder believes in him because… trauma? It doesn’t fit, and it’s weirdly framed as noble.

And you know what really makes that hit the absurdity ceiling? The fact that Mulder has never been on board with psychic powers. He’s the poster child for alien conspiracies, flukemen, black oil, and government lizard coverups — but the moment someone says they’re clairvoyant? Suddenly Mulder turns into a full-blown skeptic.

So it’s downright laughable that he’s out here grieving a convicted pedophile priest because he had “visions.” Visions that, mind you, Mulder would’ve scoffed at any other season. But sure, this is where we draw the line for sympathy. Not with his sister. Not with abductees. Nope — Father Creepsalot gets the tears. It’s like the writers forgot who Mulder even is and just handed his arc to a stranger wearing his skin.

Even Cancer Man was like “nah, I’m good” and stayed away from this dumpster fire.


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In Conclusion:
X-Files: I Want to Believe is the cinematic equivalent of losing your keys, stepping in slush, and realizing you left the stove on — all at once.
It’s slow, bizarre, and somehow manages to assassinate its own legacy.
You could watch it during Halloween season…
…but only if you’ve already watched every other spooky film ever made.