THE X-FILES (1998)

THE X-FILES (PG-13) Dark, funny, paranoid, arbitrary, humming with tamped-down eroticism and in love with all things weird: That's the good news. The major accomplishment of this data-stuffed first Files movie is that it works elegantly on two levels: novices won't be lost, but obsessive fans (like me) receive plenty of insider pleasures. There are moments in this overstimulating story when a serious X-phile will wish for the kind of suspended non-resolution possible on TV. But at least The Truth is still in here, ready for a sequel. B+ -- LS

A cosmic nothing. What, exactly, are agents Mulder (David Duchovny) and Scully (Gillian Anderson) looking to find? An alien? A virus? A conspiracy to cover up an infiltration of alien viruses? Even for a nonfan, the meticulous murkiness of The X-Files goes down easy. The irony is that when you turn the TV show that plays like a movie into a movie, you lose the atmospheric novelty that gave it prestige on the small screen. The film is directed in a style that might be described as hack Spielberg, and everything in it feels like a relic from the late '70s. B- --OG