Mulder and Scully should have left well alone

"The X-Files: I Want to Believe" might satisfy the TV series' diehard fans, but the rest of us will groan, "I want to be leaving."

Low in budget, inspiration and excitement, the film feels less like a bigger, better, widescreen reworking of the old goblins-and-G-men show than a forgotten script agonizingly stretched to feature length.

Set in snowbound stretches of the West Virginia countryside, the story concerns some baffling abductions that inspire the FBI to offer disgraced spookchaser Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) clemency in exchange for his help. It seems that a priest (Billy Connolly) with a shameful past has been having psychic visions that might disclose the location of a missing agent. But the FBI can't even find Mulder without the help of his old partner Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson). Now a pediatric surgeon with a life-or-death case on her hands, Scully is reluctant to get involved with the agency again, and loath to further strain her vexed relationship with Mulder.

Of course, they must reunite or there is no film, so the on-again-off-again couple are soon ankle-deep in slush and sleuthing. A stretch of frozen lake yields dozens of severed human limbs in a mystery murkily connected to a band of medical grave robbers.

The crimes in question are rather low-stakes (no werewolves or alien invaders this time) and so is the drama, directed by series creator Chris Carter with a script he co-wrote with Frank Spotnitz. The film's vital signs seem to be keyed to Duchovny's sluggish metabolism. We're 70 minutes into the case before there is so much as a foot chase. Instead we get brooding music, ominous shots of snowbound terrain and many closeups of the frowning stars. There is much chin-stroking discussion of God's will affecting the course of human affairs, loss of faith and the competing claims of religion and science. But it feels like so much padding added to bring the film in at 104 minutes.

Amanda Peet and Alvin Joiner (aka rapper Xzibit) spin their wheels as a pair of new FBI agents with opposite opinions of Mulder's methods. A featured player from the old TV show drops in for an extended cameo, contributing about as much to the proceedings as if he passed through via a revolving door.

Still, he's an action star compared with Duchovny, who might be the most useless hero of 2008. Duchovny's character is repeatedly overpowered in fights, is outdriven by a villain driving a rickety old snow plow and has no substantial romantic scenes with Anderson. She carries most of the drama in her role as a physician, struggling with hospital bureaucracy and employing radical surgery to save her young patient. Unfortunately, the film expires on the operating table.

Colin Covert • 612-673-7186