The X-Files - Fight the Future

The X Files
Cert. 15

In typically paranoid language this film is subtitled 'fight the future', the futuristic picture involving Earth being colonised by extra-terrestrials of a decidedly unfriendly kind.
A few points about the film: first, it is pacey, racy and you will be glued to your seat throughout. The plot is clear, although it may be less so for those unfortunate enough to have missed the TV series. So it wins for sheer viewability.
Second, the plot is rather too straightforward. Season upon season of murky government schemes to overthrow civilisation as we know it begin to boil down to a familiar line in alien exploitation of the planet, which may disappoint some. But it is done with a certain panache and a bit of a twist, which makes it worthwhile.
Third, the underlying subtext. It seems to this reviewer that there are lessons to be learned here, particularly because The X Files has become such a cult series and set a trend among sci-fi programmes. It focuses on what we don't understand, what science has failed to provide answers for, and what we (as a culture) appear to be looking for in an increasingly vast and apparently meaningless cosmos, that is, meaning, belonging and a reason to believe.
The X Files is cashing in on two fronts: the chiliastic fears of the approach of the millennium and an increasingly technological society. And, by buying into a post-modern critique of culture, it claims science has failed to give the answers, and that there are different truths, different myths by which we can live (note the Mulder-Scully axis of mystic versus scientist).
What is most interesting is that the content of the film and TV series gives the lie to The X Files refrain, 'the truth is out there'. Perhaps the real conspiracy is not a plot to overthrow governments and institutions, but in the desire to seek a form of 'truth' apart from the Truth (John 17.17). See the film, but don't swallow the story.

Oliver D. Crisp,
Bramley

© Evangelicals Now - October 1998
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