[Critiques Presse]

[Clairette]

Yeah !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! youhou !!!

[Starbuck (Acteurs X)]

Sur le site de l'Écran Fantastique, on peut lire une simple phrase :
[spoiler]Nous avons enfin pu visionner "X-Files - Regeneration" aujourd'hui ! Le film est tout simplement l'équivalent d'un des meilleurs épisodes des premières saisons de la saga (nous vous en reparlerons...)[/spoiler]

Ca fait plaisir de lire ça... C'est très positif, en plus de la part de l'Ecran Fantastique...

[Guigui]

En même temps l'EF a toujours été bon public, surtout avec XF... On peut pas les en blâmer, mais c'était juste pour dire que leurs opinions ne me suprend pas... J'ai hâte de lire leur critique en tout cas.

Sinon sur le blog XF2 (où se trouve un sondage) je tente de faire le point sur les critiques presses...

[FX]

Voici la critique de Roger Ebert, pour ceux qui connaissent un peu, c'est un des critiques les plus connus et reconnus aux Etats-Unis...

Critique très positive 3,5/5

[spoiler]"The X-Files: I Want to Believe" arrives billed as a "stand-alone" film that requires no familiarity with the famous television series. So it is, leaving us to piece together the plot on our own. And when I say "piece together," trust me, that's exactly what I mean. In an early scene, a human arm turns up, missing its body, and other spare parts are later discovered.

The arm is found in a virtuoso scene showing dozens of FBI agents lined up and marching across a field of frozen snow. They are led by a white-haired, entranced old man who suddenly drops to his knees and cries out that this is the place! And it is.

Now allow me to jump ahead and drag in the former agents Mulder and Scully. Mulder (David Duchovny) has left the FBI under a cloud because of his belief in the paranormal. Scully (Gillian Armstrong) is a top-level surgeon, recruited to bring Mulder in from the cold, all his sins forgiven, to help on an urgent case. An agent is missing, and the white-haired man, we learn, is Father Joe (Billy Connolly), a convicted pedophile, who is said to be a psychic.

Scully brings in Mulder, but detests the old priest's crimes and thinks he is a fraud. Mulder, of course, wants to believe Father Joe could help on the case. But hold on one second. Even assuming that Father Joe planted the severed arm himself, you'll have to admit it's astonishing that he can lead agents to its exact resting place in a snow-covered terrain the size of several football fields, with no landmarks. Even before he started weeping blood instead of tears, I believed him. Scully keeps right on insulting him right to his face. She wants not to believe.

Scully is emotionally involved in the case of a young boy who will certainly die if he doesn't have a risky experimental bone marrow treatment. This case, interesting in itself, is irrelevant to the rest of the plot except that it inspires a Google search that offers a fateful clue. Apart from that, what we're faced with is a series of victims, including Agent Dakota Whitney (Amanda Peet) and eventually Mulder himself, who are run off the road by a weirdo with a snowplow.

Who is doing this? And why does Father Joe keep getting psychic signals of barking dogs? And is the missing agent still alive, as he thinks she is? And won't anyone listen to Mulder, who eventually finds himself all alone in the middle of a blizzard, being run off the road, and then approaching a suspicious building complex after losing his cell phone? And how does he deal with a barking dog?

I make it sound a little silly. Well, it is a little silly, but it's also a skillful thriller, giving us just enough cutaways to a sinister laboratory to keep us fascinated. What happens in this laboratory you will have to find out for yourself, but the solution may be more complex than you think if you only watch casually. Hint: Pay close attention to the hands.

What I appreciated about "The X-Files: I Want to Believe" was that it involved actual questions of morality, just as "The Dark Knight" does. It's not simply about good and evil but about choices. Come to think of it, Scully's dying child may be connected to the plot in another way, since it poses the question: Are any means justified to keep a dying person alive?

The movie lacks a single explosion. It has firearms, but nobody is shot. The special effects would have been possible in the era of "Frankenstein." Lots of stunt people were used. I had the sensation of looking at real people in real spaces, not motion-capture in CGI spaces. There was a tangible quality to the film that made the suspense more effective because it involved the physical world.

Of course, it involves a psychic world, too. And the veteran Scottish actor Billy Connolly creates a quiet, understated performance as a man who hates himself for his sins, makes no great claims, does not understand his psychic powers, is only trying to help. He wants to believe he can be forgiven. As for Duchovny and Anderson, these roles are their own. It's like they're in repertory. They still love each other, and still believe they would never work as a couple.

Or should I say they want to believe?

The movie is insidious. It involves evil on not one level but two. The evildoers, it must be said, are singularly inept; they receive bills for medical supplies under their own names, and surely there must be more efficient ways to abduct victims and purchase animal tranquilizers. But what they're up to is so creepy, and the snow-covered Virginia landscapes so haunting, and the wrong-headedness of Scully so frustrating, and the FBI bureaucracy so stupid, and Mulder so brave, that the movie works like thrillers used to work, before they were required to contain villains the size of buildings.[/spoiler]
Source : http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbc ... WS/1651704

D'autres adresses avec des critiques positives...
NewsDay :http://www.newsday.com/entertainment/mo ... 9163.story
San Francisco chronicles : http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.c ... 01&sc=1000
DailyNews:http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainmen ... _good.html
Newsarama:http://www.newsarama.com/film/080725-x- ... eview.html
Killer Movie : http://www.killermoviereviews.com/main. ... &subLinks=
Chicago tribune:http://chicago.metromix.com/movies/movi ... 28/content
Seattle Times:http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/m ... files.html
Urban Cine File (australie): http://www.urbancinefile.com.au/home/vi ... e_ID=14562
Empire Magazine:http://www.empireonline.com/reviews/rev ... FID=135205



Faut croire que ce que certains considèrent comme des faiblesses apparaissent pour d'autres pour des qualités.
Tout ça pout dire dire qu'on nous a quand même bien massacré ce film pour pas un rond

[rainman seb]

Il faudrait qu'une ame charitable nous fasse une traduction de toutes ces critiques.

[Guigui]

Tu oublies de dire que dans tes critiques toutes ne sont pas "bonnes" mais considère le film comme "moyen" et tu ne cites toujours que les bonnes critiques alors qu'il reste pas mal de mauvaises sur le carreau (mais on va pas s'amuser à tout rescencer non plus)... Perso maintenant les chiffres (mauvais) du box-office m'intéressent beaucoup plus...

Et puis les critiques qui considèrent les faiblesses comme des qualités n'ont pas l'air d'être des personnes ayant réellement suivi la série, donc... Mais bon, le film est peut être "incompris"... L'avenir nous le dira.

[FX]

Edité

[FX]

Tu oublies de dire que dans tes critiques toutes ne sont pas "bonnes" mais considère le film comme "moyen" et tu ne cites toujours que les bonnes critiques alors qu'il reste pas mal de mauvaises sur le carreau (mais on va pas s'amuser à tout rescencer non plus)...

C'est bien de vouloir mettre les deux, encore faut-il le faire. Si je poste les critiques positives c'est peut-être parce que jusqu'a présent personne ne se bouscule au portillon pour les mettrent au point qu'on se demande si elles existent.
Je n'ai pas dit que toutes les critiques étaient "bonnes" mais positives. En tout cas certainement pas la bouse qu'on voudrait nous vendre. Entre bon, moyen et daubesque il y a encore un monde de différence.

Et puis les critiques qui considèrent les faiblesses comme des qualités n'ont pas l'air d'être des personnes ayant réellement suivi la série, donc... Mais bon, le film est peut être "incompris"... L'avenir nous le dira.

Justement, je pensais que c'était un des buts de ce film, attirer un public qui n'est pas fan à la base.

Perso maintenant les chiffres (mauvais) du box-office m'intéressent beaucoup plus...

Le box-office m'intéresse également, mais je ne crois plus au miracle...j'espère juste qu'a l'international, ils parviennent à sauver les meubles.

[Camerata]

je pense qu'il plaira plus aux non-fans qu'aux fans qui auront toujours quelque chose à redire et qui sont beaucoup plus exigeants

[usb2]

Vue dans le Journal du Dimanche du 27 juillet, une critique qui ne descend pas trop le film : 2 étoiles sur 4. La critique ne semble pas être en ligne pour le moment mais pour résumer [spoiler]elle déplore que le film soit juste un film policier, pas assez de surnaturel dedans mais toujours le plaisir de retrouver le duo mythique.[/spoiler]

[joeletaxi]

à propos d'un "Un été à Hollywood" Sur X-files :

Allouche parle carrément de film d'auteur !
Donc pas un blockbuster, pas fait pour plaire au plus grand nombre mais Chris Carter, il s'en fout...

c'est pas spoiler ça, hein ?

[LeMartien]

Critique de LE BUZZ
POSITIVE
[spoiler][Critique] The X-Files: I Want to Believe (Régénération)
Benoit Bisson - 25 juillet 2008 à 5:39 (Dernière mise à jour: 26 juillet 2008 - 7:23)Six ans après la fin de la série télévisée, les fans des X-Files (notre dossier complet du film, en salle le 25 juillet) seront heureux d’apprendre que Chris Carter est toujours aussi tordu, cynique, brillant.
En collaboration avec Frank Spotnitz, Carter a concocté un scénario digne de certains des meilleurs épisodes de la série. C’est d’ailleurs ce qui fait la principale force - et la principale faiblesse - du film. On est en terrain familier parce que, justement, il y a eu au moins un épisode avec une intrigue à peu près similaire.

Maître du suspens…
Carter n’a rien perdu de son talent pour créer un suspense et l’intrigue principale du film, merveilleusement bien servie par un travail de caméra impeccable, nous rive à notre siège, nous fait retenir notre souffle, frise l’intolérable à quelques reprises.

Il y a aussi l’humour - le cynisme? - de Carter qui arrive à contrepoint, nous faisant éclater de rire quand on ne s’y attend pas. Le meilleur moment du genre implique George W. Bush et Edgar Hoover. Efficace, brillant.

Il y a aussi David Duchovny et Gillian Anderson. On se demandait comment ils arriveraient à replonger dans leurs rôles respectifs de Fox Mulder et Dana Scully après des années passées à justement essayer d’en sortir et de passer à autre chose. La réponse: merveilleusement bien. Mulder est fidèle à lui-même: ses certitudes demeurent, son cynisme aussi. Scully, par contre, nous apparaît plus complexe. Pratiquant la médecine dans un hôpital, son expérience passée l’a amenée à s’attacher encore plus à l’humain, au scientifique, au réel.

Alors, quand le film nous balance une raison pour laquelle Scully doit demander à Mulder de reprendre du service pour le FBI, c’est un peu gros. Carter semble miser sur le fait que nous aussi, on veut croire, on veut croire ce qu’il veut nous raconter. Alors on laisse passer cette amorce un peu grosse et on embarque.

Efficace, The X-Files?


© 2008 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation. - Tous droits réservés. - Reproduites avec autorisation de l’auteur. (cliquez pour agrandir)
Et, pendant 108 minutes, on revit une recette en fait: une histoire principale, course contre la montre qui nous tient en haleine, et un fil secondaire, une trame d’interrogations peinte à gros traits, provocante, faite pour qu’à la fin du film on ait en tête une flopée de questions et d’observations, mais pas de réponse.

Sans vous dévoiler quoi que ce soit de l’intrigue, disons que les questionnements de Scully par rapport à la religion, à Dieu, à la science qui touche notamment les cellules-souches, sont tout sauf subtils. Les interrogations soulevées par l’ensemble du film par rapport aux gestes médicaux, entre le machiavélique et le divin, sont là, bien crus. Les questions de religion et les questions de foi aussi.

Alors, on se retrouve où après 108 minutes? Exactement là où Chris Carter voulait que l’on se retrouve: une intrigue a été résolue, après un bon suspense, et tous les questionnements soulevés pendant le film demeurent. À nous d’en tirer les conclusions que l’on veut. C’est ce qui fait que ma relation avec Carter est exactement comme la relation de Scully avec Mulder: je l’adore et je le déteste à la fois, me disant que, juste une fois, ce serait bien qu’il assume aussi de nous donner ses conclusions.

Mais bon, aimer les X-Files, c’est aussi aimer ces histoires qui se terminent sur des points de suspension![/spoiler]

[Guigui]

C'est bien de vouloir mettre les deux, encore faut-il le faire...

Je me suis pas gêné pour en poster dès que j'en ai trouvé et souvent je me suis fais devancé d'ailleurs...
Maintenant j'attend de voir le film pour me faire ma propre opinion...

[Burger]

Critique très méchante sur le site Internet du journal suisse, Le Matin (avec des méchants spoilers) :

[spoiler]Après être revenu au-devant de la scène grâce à la série «Californication», David Duchovny endosse une nouvelle fois le costume de Fox Mulder dans le film «X-Files 2». Mauvaise idée

Rafael Wolf - le 26 juillet 2008, 13h17
Le Matin Dimanche

Un vrai ovni, ce Duchovny! Devenu star grâce à un seul rôle, celui de l'agent Fox Mulder dans «X-Files», le bonhomme s'efforce depuis de faire oublier ce personnage qui lui apporta la notoriété, histoire de faire décoller une carrière résolument morose.

A peine y est-il arrivé avec l'excellente série «Californication», actuellement disponible en DVD, qu'il endosse une nouvelle fois le costume de l'agent Mulder dès le 30 juillet dans «X-Files: Regeneration», suite navrante du long-métrage sorti en 1998. Un pas en avant pour un bond en arrière. Et si la vérité était vraiment ailleurs?

Mulder, une affaire non classée
A peu près aussi captivant qu'un épisode de «Derrick», «X-Files 2» continue donc à enfermer Duchovny dans l'antichambre du FBI. L'intrigue anorexique de ce second volet se concentre sur une série d'enlèvements mystérieux qui amènent le tandem Scully (Gillian Anderson) et Mulder à se reformer.

Une affaire plus insolite que surnaturelle, où l'on verra un prêtre pédophile médium, des docteurs russes pratiquant des expériences quelque peu radicales, le retour momentané de Skinner et George W. Bush, comparé, non sans humour, à un E.T.

Dans la série «Californication», Duchovny campe Hank Moody, un écrivain en panne d'inspiration, cynique et coureur de jupons.Photo DR

David Duchovny rebondit
Pour le reste, on assiste à près de deux heures bavardes et laborieuses, où science et religion se confrontent alors que Scully et Mulder se font deux ou trois papouilles avant de s'avouer que, oui, on s'aime, mais on ne peut vraiment pas vivre ensemble. Le tout emballé dans un message martelé durant tout le métrage: «N'abandonne pas». Devant une telle déconfiture, on aurait justement préféré conseiller à Duchovny d'abandonner Fox Mulder pour se concentrer sur Hank Moody, antihéros de «Californication» vivotant à Los Angeles.

Dans cette série très «cul», disponible en coffret 3 DVD, l'acteur campe un écrivain à succès qui n'a plus écrit une ligne depuis son roman «Dieu nous déteste», dénaturé par Hollywood et rebaptisé «Une folie nommée amour», avec Tom et Katie (!!!) en tête d'affiche.

Cynique à souhait, porté sur l'alcool, les joints, la coke et les femmes, le bougre en panne d'inspiration passe son temps à sauter tout ce qui lui tombe sous la main, histoire d'oublier Karen, son grand amour dont il est séparé. Cette dernière s'apprête à se marier avec Bill, veuf pâlot dont la fille de 16 ans, Mia, manipule Hank depuis qu'ils ont couché ensemble.

Empêtré dans sa vie sentimentale et plongé dans une impasse professionnelle, Moody (littéralement «faire la moue» en français) doit également assumer l'éducation de sa gamine, Becca.

Hank Moody, un anti-Fox Mulder
Alors que la saison 2 a d'ores et déjà été commandée, cette première salve de 12 épisodes s'avère des plus jouissives. Le ton est joyeusement caustique. Les personnages enlevés et surprenants. Les situations volontiers scabreuses (partie à trois, sadomasochisme...). Et les dialogues souvent vachards.

A travers Hank Moody, antihéros faillible qui se révèle au final nettement plus sentimental que sa carapace veut bien le laisser croire, David Duchovny prend un malin plaisir à écorner l'image proprette de Fox Mulder.

En ne gardant que le X des «X-Files», l'acteur a trouvé un nouvel élan grâce à ce personnage de loser pas si éloigné de ce qu'il était il y a encore deux ans. Reste à espérer qu'il daigne enfin classer l'affaire Mulder une bonne fois pour toutes.[/spoiler]

[Clairette]

Méchant article, méchant spoiler... tout à fait... il est dur le journaliste... mais il adore Californication donc bon... le David Duchovny version Fox Mulder lui file peut-être des boutons...

[FX]

Critique positive 3.5/5 d' IGN Australia, July 23rd/2008

[spoiler]**Come for the weird; stay for the characters**

- The Hollywood machine does not know how to let sleeping dogs lie. We see it all the time, to varying degrees of success – 'The Dukes of Hazzard' at one end and something like 'Serenity' at the other – though, the value of remakes and adaptations is really up to the viewer.

Then there's a dark horse like Chris Carter's 'The X-Files'; a series fondly remembered by many viewers for resetting the TV horror genre and breathing some innovation into the formula. However, after nine seasons, a film spinoff and the almost-total departure of lead actor David Duchovny, the final bell tolled and The X-Files casebook was closed, filed and fondly recalled.

Rumours of another film resurfaced shortly thereafter and the project simmered in the background, on and off, for six years. And here we are – one more instalment, one more investigation – and a tale aimed squarely at fans.

The one thing that The X-Files: I Want to Believe has going for it, more than anything else, is the romanticism generated by being a treasured fan-favourite. It joins the ranks of shows like Firefly and Futurama in its ability to generate passionate discourse and support for 'more of the same please' – and it seems that production companies are increasingly receptive to this viewer demand.

To that end, The X-Files: I Want to Believe delivers completely. It is unapologetically X-Files-esque in flavour and direction, and it rarely breaks into 'summer blockbuster' mode. It's a surprisingly intimate story that places equal emphasis on character development, punctuated by murky, often disturbing, horror thrills.

It's the television show with increased scope, but never to the degree of The X-Files: Fight the Future – and frankly, that's the right move.

I Want to Believe does indeed hinge on a supernatural angle, taking place in snowy, isolated hills of West Virginia that conjure memories of John Carpenter's seminal Antarctic horror movie, 'The Thing'. The hook centres around religion versus science – and the ongoing believer/sceptic and 'lovers or friends?' relationship between Fox Mulder and Dana Scully.

If it sounds like this review is dancing around the raw details of I Want to Believe, you'd be spot-on. This is because the story is very easily broken by editorial missteps; plus, context is absolutely critical to why this film succeeds, and we think it's important that you have the background.

Soft-spoken Duchovny's return to the role of 'believer' Mulder is as smooth and believable a transition as you could hope for; six years of absence is mostly explained away with some vaguely pubic-like facial hair and a lot of pencils tossed into the plasterboard ceiling above his desk. Gillian Anderson, however, is actually afforded proper back-story treatment. In a lot of ways, I Want to Believe is Scully's story, as you'll realise by the end credits. Her character has moved in a different career direction in the six years post-series, and her separate plot thread actually ends up taking precedence during the closing of the film.

Billy Connolly joins the cast as a shut-in priest with some serious skeletons in his closet. Connolly was an interesting choice on the part of Carter and co-producer Frank Spotnitz; the role does indeed suit the typically bombastic comedian's knack for the occasional low-key dramatic role. He certainly has screen presence – though, a mad scientist's head of hair and tremendous accent no doubt helps. His character provides a great ethical and moral hinge for Scully's routine doubting and, as fans will remember, a timely reminder of Scully's dissolving faith in religion.

Peet, Duchovny and Xzibit looking at something we don't want to spoil for you.
More importantly though, the trailers might have led you to believe that the script was lacking ("It's here! It's here! It's here. ...It's here!"); a heartbreaking conclusion to draw for a series that generally sat on the better end of scriptwriting. Fears can be abated, thankfully. The trailers really only outline the first 15 minutes or so of the film – and again, context and surrounding dialogue contribute so much to these scenes. Connolly actually steals a few of his scenes with understated but charismatic and impassioned delivery.

This flawed character delivers a solid portion of authenticity to the film; the other slice is surely reserved for the horrors at play under the ice and in darkened corners of the rural setting. While Dana Scully and Fox Mulder do round out the character-driven portion of I Want to Believe with their romantic subplot and some nudge-nudge, wink-wink references, the film is nearly trademark-Carter in how it handles the supernatural elements of the story.

There are victims, claustrophobic extreme close-ups, angry dogs and things that lurk in shadows. Snowfields, street chases, tussling cars and conspiracies of a timely and original nature all lend themselves to setting up an interesting investigation with twists you'd be hard-pressed to guess. It's all handled with Chris Carter's knack for making the mundane parts of life into horror story playfields.

His flair extends to the black humour and sly nods to camera about George W. Bush and J. Edgar Hoover portraits in the FBI hallway, capped by the iconic X-Files chime. There are knowing looks, moments of exchanged silence between our greying heroes and most scenes of this nature are handled deftly – even if it lacks subtlety at times. No complaints could be heard from fans that I Want to Believe doesn't segue with the feel of the series.

There are some notable issues that pull the production down, however. Clearly, the smaller production scale wasn't purely a voluntary move. While snowfields, grim lighting and prosthetics carry the cold, bleak atmosphere along, there are a handful of roughshod effects moments that stick out badly.

Opposites attract.
Support characters ASAC Dakota Whitney (Amanda Peet) and Agent Mosley Drummy (Alvin 'Xzibit' Joiner) are predictably undefined and mostly token. Peet spends most of her time in monotone recitation mode, trying her best to play 'hardened' when, at best, she comes across as 'Law and Order side character'. Xzibit just comes across as inexplicably angry and sour – though, this is a script issue. He's not fleshed out in any meaningful way; just another burly fellow who ticks the anti-Mulder box for no particular reason.

Perhaps the biggest flaw in the production is how Carter and company handle the ending. There's a throwaway cameo, some silly and unlikely coincidences and, sadly, a pace to the edit that completely strips away the tension that steadily builds and – in one shocking cut – completely glosses over the resolution of the crime at hand. You'll see.

The jump in end sequence is a baffling move for a film that gets most of it so right. We're hurried along with a quick 'alright, nothing to see here' from director to audience. Suddenly we're tossed back into an epilogue – strictly Scully's subplot – and that's that. The X-Files: I Want to Believe is over. There's just not enough closure.

But again, for fans of the series, that's almost an X-Files series trademark in itself.

Being potentially the last time that Chris Carter and his X-Files ensemble are cast to celluloid, he goes for broke during the credits sequence and provides the happy-fan-ending that'll make you cringe, but that we all secretly wanted to see. It's a movie for the die-hards, in the end – though, to Carter and Spotnitz's credit, you can drag non-fans along and they will draw just enough from the surface coat of thriller-horror to justify the ticket price.

Is it still niche? Still a tiny bit cornball? Yeah - but so was most of the original series. The difference is, as always, the Duchovny/Anderson cocktail, which hits all the right notes. Come for the weird; stay for the characters. It's a formula that carried the series through six of its nine seasons and a six-year absence, and it's this bond that ultimately redeems the film, too.[/spoiler]
http://movies.ign.com/articles/893/893269p1.html

Positive de Fort Worth Business Press

[spoiler]**New ‘X-Files’ ranks among year’s better films**

“Our job, as actors specializing in bizarre fantasy, is to take the unbelievable — and make it seem believable,” as Vincent Price often said. “This, as opposed to the purported realists and the method-actor types, who often take the believable and make it unbelievable.

“This is why I tend to believe that fantasy is, perhaps secretly, the truer realism,” Price added. “If we do our job correctly, we leave the viewer with a desire to believe in our stories.”

Seldom has the role of the fabulist, the generously extravagant storyteller, been so succinctly described. And had he lived into the decade of Chris Carter’s television series The X-Files — Price died shortly after the program’s launch in 1993 — I imagine that the long-running program would have registered as well with Vincent Price as it did with a mass audience. The willingness to make the unbelievable seem plausible is a factor, here.

The X-Files helped to define its times, after all, addressing but never exploiting or abusing a popular distrust of Big Government and a generally perceived connection between spiritual concerns and the secrets and revelations of Big Science. “I Want To Believe,” reads a poster adorning the office of Fox Mulder (played by David Duchovny). And maverick investigator Mulder’s willingness to believe in otherwordly phenomena helped to keep the teleseries perking along into the new century, with a big-screen movie spinoff in 1998.

Six years after The X-Files lapsed from view, droll believer Mulder and open-minded skeptic Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) make a welcome return in The X-Files: I Want To Believe. The new film has a built-in audience, of course — and how better to explain all those X-Files fan-sites that persist on the Internet? — but it succeeds on a larger scale in its appealing accessibility to a broader audience unaccustomed to the original series.

The long-delayed film, first plotted in the immediate wake of the Fox Network series and originally intended for completion in 2005, is not only an improvement upon the 1998 X-Files movie, which played out in its day as something of an afterthought to the small-screen serial.

No, Chris Carter’s The X-Files: I Want To Believe is as ambitious and formidable an allegorical epic of science-fantasy as Steven Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) or Robert Wise’s The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) — with the bonus of reuniting the enthusiasts with some fondly remembered characters. The new film requires no prefabricated familiarity, however. It may prove most inviting to those customers who wouldn’t know X-Files from Ex-Lax.

Nor does director Carter’s collaborative screenplay delve into the complicated mythology of the series itself. Apart from its general storyline, the teleseries occasionally would offer a stand-alone episode — a “monster of the week” yarn, to use Carter’s terminology — and that is essentially what the new film delivers. The story hinges largely upon professional and romantic tensions between Mulder and Scully, complicated by the presence of a fallen priest, the Rev. Joseph Crissman (Billy Connolly), and a sequence of kidnappings — abductions might be a better term, here — that suggest a larger central menace. The sense of lurking peril plays out with a greater intimacy than the overriding conspiracy angle of 1998’s The X-Files: Fight the Future, and the conflicts derive more from character-driven momentum.

Scots-born Billy Connolly plays Father Crissman with a smart combination of rancor and earnestly soulful appeal, presenting an easy-to-dislike character of nonetheless sympathetic conflict. Connolly’s edgy exchanges with Duchovny are as unnerving as many of the film’s more overt moments of unease and terror.

Gillian Anderson’s Agent Scully remains a figure of mixed reluctance and determination — as heroically appealing as when last seen on television but with a more assertive manner and, at length, the dominant presence in the relationship with Mulder. Duchovny’s Mulder remains an endearing outsider, as determined as ever to find a factual basis for his more outlandish beliefs. Backup agents are ably well portrayed by Amanda Peet and Alvin Joiner, billed here under his nom-de-rap, Xzibit.

Yes, and the fans will enjoy the film’s array of inside-jokes and self-references, which never encumber the larger story. The richness of characterization, a compelling situation torn between impossibility and plausibility, and an unpredictable chain of thought-provoking thrills — all combine to make this new X-Files excursion one of the year’s more rewarding movies. Believe it.[/spoiler]

http://www.fwbusinesspress.com/display.php?id=8042

Positive de " The Courier Mail Australia"

[spoiler]**Yes, it's been worth the wait**
--The X-Files: I Want To Believe
*** 1/2

THE hush-hush production of the new X-Files reunion, with David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson back as the (now former) FBI agents, Fox Mulder and Dana Scully, has meant the new film's storyline has been kept under wraps.

To preserve the movie's twists, there won't be detailed revelations about the plot here.

But the ploy of top-level secrecy (even restricting copies of the script to only a few members of the cast), did not make it any easier to disguise the disappointment left by the original 1998 film based on the series.

So has the 10-year gap between the original X-Files film and this new instalment been long enough for fans to forgive the series creators, Chris Carter and Frank Spotniz, for the routine movie they offered in 1998?

The answer should be yes. While the new film The X-Files: I Want To Believe (directed by Carter) does not involve Mulder and Scully chasing extra terrestrials, which might disappoint X-Files purists, they are engaged in a chilling investigation closer in style to a Dr Frankenstein mystery or as stomach-churning as The Silence of the Lambs.

It's something quite different from a standard hour of the TV series which ended its long run in 2002.

Older and perhaps wiser, Duchovny and Anderson impress with the sincerity they bring to their roles, and their relationship still provides opportunities for intensely personal exchanges (with Scully, beautifully acted by Anderson, to the fore).

The retired Mulder and Dr Scully are drawn into an FBI missing persons investigation, headed by Whitney (Amanda Peet) and Drummy (an impressive debut from rapper Alvin ``Xzibit'' Joiner).

A disgraced Catholic priest, Father Joseph Crissman (Billy Connolly, in a straight role free of intentional laughs) who has been convicted of abusing 37 altar boys, claims to have psychic powers that can lead the investigators to a woman believed to have been abducted.

(Hint for the Queensland authorities pondering where to house pedophiles. Father Crissman lives in a dormitory built exclusively for such offenders who monitor each other's behaviour).

Being an expert in phenomena, Mulder is called back to duty to test the priest's psychic abilities, viewed cynically by the God-fearing Scully.

Things turn nasty when severed human limbs are found buried in the snow, and the reason for the abductions -- involving human body organs -- is revealed.

It's all very dark, although Carter does pause for a joke or two (one at the expense of the incumbent US President).

Cinematographer Bill Roe (who filmed many episodes of the series) uses dark interiors, fierce canines, and wintry landscapes to effect in this intriguing addition to The X-Files lore. (104 min)[/spoiler]

Positive du "From The Daily Telegraph Australia"
[spoiler]**THE X-FILES: I WANT TO BELIEVE**

Scully and Mulder's new, stand-alone X-Files movie surprisingly arrives with such little fanfare, it's almost tempting to think in terms of paranoid conspiracy theories.

Either the extraordinary lengths creator Chris Carter went to in keeping the project under wraps succeeded beyond his wildest dreams.

Or nobody, including the film's distributor - 20th Century Fox-- is particularly interested in what has happened to the two FBI agents in the six years since the series finale.

Whatever the actual cause, the lack of pre-publicity might well have done the film a favour - ensuring it was neither sunk by the weight of advance expectations or knobbled by nostalgia.

Aiding and abetting the process is the extended gap between screen outings - only the most avid of fans will still be able to recall the intricacies of Scully (Gillian Anderson) and Mulder's (David Duchovny) relationship - with each other and the world at large.

In contrast to the first X-Files film, released in 1998, audiences don't need to be familiar with the complex mythology of the TV series to follow what's going on here.

There are no alien invasions in I Want To Believe.

Even the supernatural elements are surprisingly underplayed - and at times perhaps underexplored.

But there are still plenty of existential conundrums to explore - not the least of which being the question:

What is Mulder doing in bed with Scully?

With its severed body parts, tough female FBI agents, and icy, white-outed backdrop, the film is at times almost reminiscent of a Patricia Cornwell novel.

Amanda Peet is well cast as Dakota Whitney, the agent in charge of the investigation who goes out on a limb to bring Mulder back from a long stint in the wilderness.

And Billy Connolly is convincingly creepy as Father Joe, the paedophile priest who starts having visions about the kidnapped victims.

But the relationship between Scully and Mulder is at the heart of The X-Files.

And it has lost none of its spark in the intervening years.

Anderson effortlessly steals the screen as the cool-as-a-cucumber physician, who has now left the FBI and is working at a Catholic hospital.

Duchovny's older and slightly more mellow Mulder hasn't been hurt at all by the association with his recent success, Californication.

I Want To Believe holds up well as a workman-like thriller that continues the series' ongoing faith versus science debate.

It's a debate mirrored in the subplot that focuses on Scully's terminally ill patient and the difficult decision about whether the young boy's fate should now be left in God's hands - or whether a gamble should be taken at the riskier, extreme fringe of medicine.

This subplot links nicely back to the main forensic narrative involving ethics and stem cell research.

A solid genre piece with two charismatic, tried-and tested leads.[/spoiler]

[calicalou]

Comment tu es au taquet concernant les critiques

Ouahhh impressionnée !!!


Ca fait du bien un peu de positif...

[torrance 2.0]

Si je ne reviendrai pas sur le film, puisque mon avis est connu, je trouve cela particulièrement étrange la façon dont les auteurs des mauvaises critiques se sont faits traiter de tous les noms, et comment les critiques positives sont accueillies comme le Messie.
Donc, si je comprends bien, les critiques qui vont dans votre sens sont dignes de confiance, mais les autres sont des immondes cinéastes frustrés qui n'y connaissent rien et ne sont pas de vrais fans d'XF.
La vérité est ailleurs aurait dit CC...

[elegy084]

Torrance, je pense qu'une fois qu'on aura tous vu le film tu auras autant d'amis que d'ennemis sur ta critiques (si ce n'est plus d'ailleurs) . Je dis ça car au vu quand même de la majorité des critiques (presse ou spectateurs) c'est plutôt pas très bon.
Ce qui a c'est que vous avez été les premiers à nous faire partager votre critique sur le film, et vous avez essuyé les platres comme on dit. En tout cas c'était courageux et sympas de le faire quand même
De toute façon c'est clair que ça va alimenter les débats sur les forums...

[Burger]

Si je ne reviendrai pas sur le film, puisque mon avis est connu, je trouve cela particulièrement étrange la façon dont les auteurs des mauvaises critiques se sont faits traiter de tous les noms, et comment les critiques positives sont accueillies comme le Messie.
Donc, si je comprends bien, les critiques qui vont dans votre sens sont dignes de confiance, mais les autres sont des immondes cinéastes frustrés qui n'y connaissent rien et ne sont pas de vrais fans d'XF.
La vérité est ailleurs aurait dit CC...

Je pense que tu comprends mal justement. Je ne sais pas de qui tu parles, mais en tout cas, dans ce topic, je n'ai pas vu quelqu'un remettre réellement en cause lesdites critiques. Les petits commentaires par-ci par-là montrent simplement qu'on reste intrigué, parfois optimiste ou la plupart du temps très pessimiste, rien de plus.