In this, the first movie based on the hit television series, FBI Special Agents Mulder and Scully pursue their first real break in discovering the forces behind the alien conspiracy to colonize Earth.
Also known as: The X-Files: Fight the Future (title with subtitle/logline), The X-Files: Blackwood (working title)
Subgenres: science-fiction, action
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Though this film is enjoyable--and, yes, I've been big fan of the series since its genesis--it has problems. I never expected too many answers to the questions that had been plaguing X-Files viewers for years, but I did expect something on par with the best episodes of the series. Unfortunately, what we all got was a bunch of action scenes, which is part--but certainly not all--of what the show is about. Anderson and Duchovny are good, as usual, and so are the effects, but the whole thing just never entharalled me. (Mar 1, 1999) philjohn.com - approaching the unexplained 
A tv show transferred to the movies, that's always something special, but now it's The X-Files - a series that's already somehow different from usual tv style. The show itself is having an atmosphere that's much more looking like that of a movie, so that the movie looks and feels like some kind of extended two-parter. And that's what it is - it's a movie, but it doesn't only belong to the series, it is integrated into the show - sort of series special following the last episode from season five and preceeding season six. That's the only problem the film might have - as it presupposes a certain knowledge from the viewer. Does this pre-knowledge help? It only helps to confuse the confusion - the truth is revealed, yeah, that's true, but as always only in small pieces of the whole, demanding further answers and posing new questions. The movie is the best start a movie series could have. Like every tv episode, it starts with some chilling teaser and then develops slowly, even somehow innocently. At first the Dallas bomb search doesn't seem to fit in, it seems to be like a Bond-like initial action sequence. But when we hear from Kurtzweil (Martin Landau) that there have been some bodies in the exploded building that we seem to know from the beginning of the film. This sudden realization is typical X-Files style, now everything is connected, every piece of conspiracy is being deconstructed. The movie is not like something one might expect from Star Trek movies, it is not fannish. The obsession of some fans with a love story between Mulder and Scully is kind of being obviously ignored and even played on. And then again, this is The X-Files - a show that is not really pleasant to watch. Every disgusting or cruel or annoying scene of horror created by human beings (although Millennium is even darker in that respect) not rarely made me think why the heck I would watch something that nothing but created feelings of horror and perhaps paranoia. This is not a movie one exits with a smile, this is not a move one could consume with an undisturbed detached smile. This is The X-Files, this is about darkness and light, about fate, about really hard stuff. Some people might laugh about it because they don't watch it but just observe the following, the fandom, the cultural impact. This is not about some silly theories about little green or gray men. This is not about some freaking alien horror story; the only monsters on the screen are the humans who try to gain profit and power from a serious situation. Even those men like Deep Throat or the Well Manicured Man or X or even Mulder's father are killers, murderers - they help Mulder because they have just a small piece of conscience left. This is about a government that cooperates with Nazi scientists, with people who have run death camps and took part in genocide and holocaust. This is about an economy that is only motivated by profit, endangering the lives of animals and humans just for making profit in true Ferengi manner. This is about a society that doesn't any more seem to care. It is not just about America, it is about global tendencies. Cherish the past - enjoy the present - fight the future: For the truth is coming. (Oct 31, 1999)
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