The X Files (1998)

User Rating:

6.8/10   

Director:

Rob Bowman

Writers (WGA):

Chris Carter (story) and
Frank Spotnitz (story) ...

Release Date:

19 June 1998 (USA)

Genre:

Crime | Horror | Mystery | Sci-Fi | Thriller

Tagline:

Fight the Future

Plot:

Mulder and Scully must fight the government in a conspiracy and find the truth about an alien colonization of Earth.

Plot Keywords:

Agent | FBI | Texas | Bomb | Government

Awards:

3 wins & 7 nominations

Cast

David Duchovny	...	Special Agent Fox Mulder
Gillian Anderson	...	Special Agent Dana Scully
John Neville	...	The Well-Manicured Man
William B. Davis	...	Cigarette Smoking Man / CGB Spender
Martin Landau	...	Alvin Kurtzweil, MD
Mitch Pileggi	...	Assistant Director Walter Skinner
Jeffrey DeMunn	...	Ben Bronschweig, M.D. (as Jeffrey De Munn)
Blythe Danner	...	Jana Cassidy
Terry O'Quinn	...	Darius Michaud
Armin Mueller-Stahl	...	Conrad Strughold
Lucas Black	...	Stevie
Christopher Fennell	...	Boy #2 (as Chris Fennell)
Cody Newton	...	Boy #3
Blake Stokes	...	Boy #4
Dean Haglund	...	Richard 'Ringo' Langly

Also Known As:

Aux frontières du réel (Canada: French title)
Blackwood (USA) (working title)
Fight the Future (USA) (working title)
The X Files: Fight the Future (USA) (working title)
The X-Files (USA) (closing credits title)
X-Files: Blackwood (USA) (working title)
X-Files: The Movie (USA) (working title)

MPAA:

Rated PG-13 for some intense violence and gore.

Runtime:

121 min

Country:

Canada | USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

DTS | Dolby Digital | SDDS

Certification:

Iceland:12 (original rating) | Iceland:16 (video rating) | South Korea:12 | New Zealand:M | Argentina:13 | Australia:M | Canada:13+ (Quebec) | Canada:14A (British Columbia) | Canada:14 (Nova Scotia) | Canada:AA (Ontario) | Canada:PA (Manitoba) | Canada:PG (Alberta) | Chile:14 | Finland:K-16 | France:U | Germany:12 (w) | Hong Kong:IIA | Netherlands:12 | Norway:15 | Peru:14 | Poland:15 | Portugal:M/12 | Singapore:PG | Spain:T | Sweden:11 | UK:15 | USA:PG-13

Filming Locations:

Bakersfield, California, USA

Company:

Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation

Trivia:

Former LAPD bomb squad officer Herb Williams and former FBI agent William O. Heaton acted as advisors for the bomb sequence - and appeared in the movie as agents in a scene with Scully.

Goofs:

Factual errors: It would be almost impossible to go to the interior of the Antarctic continent in July (middle of the winter) due to extremely bad weather. Barring extreme medical emergencies, no U.S. flights land on the continent between April and October.

Quotes:

Barmaid: I'd say this about exceeds your minimum daily requirement.
Barmaid: [Mulder knocks over his glass] Whoa! You've gotta train for that kind of heavy lifting.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in "Saturday Night Live: David Duchovny/Puff Daddy/Jimmy Page (#23.20)" (1998)

Soundtrack:

Crystal Ship

A laughable cult to be derided like The Invaders, Land of the Giants or, indeed, Lost In Space. Wrong.

When it began you may have thought this paranoid adventure's destiny, in say fifteen years time, was a slot after The Waltons on a Sunday afternoon. A laughable cult to be derided like The Invaders, Land of the Giants or, indeed, Lost In Space. Wrong. It has matured into the most revered SF phenomenon since Star Trek and as those champions of hair, ZZ Top, once proclaimed it's 'got legs'.

Forsaking opening credits or a slow build-up, director Rob Bowman propels us on to a roller-coaster ride of moderately daft spooky shenanigans and grand effects. All the same elements from the TV series are here, shadowy high-ranking figures controlling the planet - "These people have been secretly negotiating a planned Armageddon", plenty of furtive glances and hellish beasties from the dawn of time. Plus we have the two small box giants, Mulder (David 'Mondeo Man' Duchovny) and Scully (Gillian 'the FHM pin-up' Anderson), coming across marvellously well on the big screen.

In fact, for a show which thrives on a claustrophobic feel, this wide-screen treatment is cleverly handled. Bowman arms his two leads with a witty, edgy script, and pits them against the pervading evil through a combination of Aliens, James Bond and Alfred Hitchcock action sequences.

Ultimately, The X-Files is very entertaining and thankfully devoid of any product placing or blessed meteors.