Movie Review – The X-Files: Fight the Future (1998)

In September of 1993 the world was introduced to The X-Files, a science-fiction / horror television show that investigated government and extraterrestrial conspiracies.

The X-Files was a smash hit as FBI Special Agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully dove deeper into the conspiracies.  Mulder continued to investigate mysterious claims along with extraterrestrials, while Scully was there to invalidate Mulder’s claims and attempt to bring the rogue special agent “back to reality.”  While Scully has been able to disprove many of Mulder’s conspiracy claims, many cases left her and the viewers questioning what they really witnessed.

It was just a matter of time before the success of The X-Files led to its first full-length feature film.

The X-Files: Fight the Future was released on June 19, 1998, between the fifth and sixth seasons of the television show.  Directed by Rob Bowman and written by Chris Carter and Frank Spotnitz, the film brings along several major players in the TV series.  David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson reprise their roles as FBI Special Agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully.  Mitch Pileggi reprises his role as FBI Assistant Director Walter Skinner, William B. Davis is the Cigarette Smoking Man, and John Neville plays the role of the Well-Manicured Man, a key player in the Syndicate.

The X-Files: Fight the Future (1998) – (c) 20th Century Fox

The X-Files: Fight the Future begins in 35,000 B.C. during the last major Ice Age.  The area is what would ultimately become North Texas.  We see two cavemen follow a path through the snow and run into a cave.  Inside the cave they light torches and begin searching for something, exactly what it is we don’t know.

The two cavemen search deeper into the ice cave until they discover the frozen body of a fellow cavemen.  Suddenly an alien jumps out and viciously attacks the two cavemen.  One caveman dies while the other is wounded but still manages to stab the alien.  The alien scampers away and the cavemen goes hunting for it.  He finds the alien in another cavern and the two of them fight again.  The cavemen manages to kill the alien, but as the alien’s black blood pours out of the dead body and into the caveman, we see that the “winning” caveman still lost the battle.

Fast forward to 1998.

The X-Files: Fight the Future (1998) – (c) 20th Century Fox

Four local boys are digging outside their community in North Texas when the ground suddenly gives way.  A young boy named Stevie (Lucas Black) falls into a cavern and discovers bones and skulls.  All of a sudden black fluid oozes out of the ground around the boy’s feet, and tiny organisms begin crawling up through his body.

Local firefighters arrive and try to help rescue Stevie from the underground cave.  When the first two firefighters don’t respond to their commander, two more are sent in after them.  Just after that a biohazard team arrives led by Ben Bronschweig (Jeffrey DeMunn).  The commander of the firefighters watches as the biohazard team uses a sealed container to remove the unconscious boy from the cave.  Large unmarked trucks arrive, implying that there’s more at stake here than what we’re being told.

One week later there’s a bomb threat against a federal building in Dallas, Texas.  With the X-Files now closed, FBI Special Agents Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) are part of the team searching for the bomb.  Scully debates the reasoning for a terrorist to call in a bomb threat yet the FBI search teams cannot locate the explosives.  She and Mulder are actually across the street searching a different building for the bomb.  Mulder knows that the federal building is too well guarded for such an attack, so he’s acting on a hunch and looking elsewhere in the surrounding area.

That hunch pays off when Mulder tries to get a drink from a vending machine in a break room only to discover that the machine itself is hiding the bomb.  Scully calls for immediate help after ordering the building’s security team to evacuate the building.  Inside the break room, Special Agent in Charge Darius Michaud (Terry O’Quinn) orders all agents out of the room while he personally dismantles the bomb.  This is against protocol and Mulder tries to stay with the SAC, but Scully orders him out of the building.

The X-Files: Fight the Future (1998) – (c) 20th Century Fox

Minutes tick by and Mulder tries to go back inside the building, but Scully convinces him not to go.  They race away just as the bomb detonates, destroying half of the building and killing SAC Michaud.

Back in Washington, D.C. at the FBI headquarters, Dana Scully goes through an interrogation by the Office of Professional Review.  Mulder is forced to wait outside of the room while Scully testifies and gives her side of what took place during the bombing and why the bomb was not dismantled before it detonated.  Before he was removed from the room, Mulder heard that in addition to SAC Michaud, four people and a child were also killed in the explosion.  Mulder questions why they were killed when the building was supposedly evacuated, but he doesn’t receive an answer.

After her questioning by the OPR, Scully reveals that the panel is splitting her partnership with Mulder.  She’s just as devastated by the news, but there’s nothing that she can do about it.  Fox Mulder takes this news hard and heads to a local bar where he tries to drink away his problems.

The X-Files: Fight the Future (1998) – (c) 20th Century Fox

While standing outside the bar and taking a pee, a man named Alvin Kurtzweil (Martin Landau) approaches and tries to talk to Mulder about the bombing in Dallas, Texas.  Mulder refuses to talk and heads to the street to hail a cab.  Kurtzweil is really a doctor and used to be partners with Mulder’s father.  He also reveals why that other building and not the federal building was bombed.  It’s revealed that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) had a provisional medical quarantine office inside of that building, which was where the bodies were found.  Those five people were already dead well before the bomb detonated.  SAC Michaud intentionally let the bomb detonate.  The Powers That Be (in this case the Syndicate) destroyed an entire building in order to cover-up the deaths of five people.

After his meeting with Kurtzweil, Mulder visits Scully at her home in Georgetown.  He convinces her to head somewhere with him in the middle of the night.

The X-Files: Fight the Future (1998) – (c) 20th Century Fox

Back in North Texas, the site above the cave has been transformed into a secure research facility.  The Cigarette Smoking Man (William B. Davis) arrives and Ben Bronschweig leads him down into the cave while they wear biohazard suits.  We learn more about the threat as Bronschweig explains more about the alien disease.  The disease uses a combination of heat and a host’s physical body to manifest itself, literally growing inside of the human body until it’s mature enough to escape and live on its own.  The human in this case is still being kept alive so the scientists can try to develop a cure to the disease.

The X-Files: Fight the Future (1998) – (c) 20th Century Fox

Back in Washington, D.C., enter a naval hospital and talk their way past a soldier standing guard to a morgue.  They find the bodies of the firemen and Scully quickly determines that their bodies are nothing like what it states in the paperwork for their official cause of death.  She stays in the morgue and performs an autopsy, trying to determine what might have killed the man.

While Scully is investigating the dead fireman, Mulder heads to the home of Alvin Kurtzweil.  He walks into the home and discovers that there are other agents there looking for evidence.  One of the investigators reveals that Kurtzweil was allegedly molesting children, but Mulder suspects that it’s really a cover-up.  Outside his home, Kurtzweil waits in the shadows to speak with Mulder.  Kurtzweil claims that the alleged crimes against him are false.  It’s all because somebody found out that he was talking to Special Agent Mulder.

Kurtzweil is a conspiracy theorist himself, but he has access to inside information.  He warns Mulder about the true power and danger of FEMA.  He makes Mulder question why FEMA was involved with what was being claimed to be a small outbreak of the Hantavirus in North Texas, something that seems way too small to attract the attention of such a powerful organization.  Kurtzweil reveals that there’s been an organization of people working on a deadly virus for the past fifty years, a virus that’s being designed to systematically destroy the entire human population in the near future.  It’s part of a grander scheme with extraterrestrial origins.  He advises Mulder to return to North Texas and dig for more clues before it’s too late.

The X-Files: Fight the Future (1998) – (c) 20th Century Fox

Back in North Texas, the secret research facility is being dismantled and the bodies being removed.  Ben Bronschweig heads back underground to check something when he notices that the alien that was growing inside of the human has escaped.  It’s now lurking somewhere in the cave.  Bronschweig spots the creature hiding in a shadow and wants to test the vaccine on it, seeing if it works in killing the creature.

The alien ambushes Bronschweig and brutally attacks him with its claws.  The doctor is able to stab a needle into the alien and inject it with the vaccine.  He’s badly wounded and tries to climb the ladder out of the cave, but his colleagues can’t risk him being infected and exposing others to the virus.  Bronschweig is buried alive as the cave is sealed from the top and buried in dirt.  He’s then grabbed and brutally killed by the alien.

The X-Files: Fight the Future (1998) – (c) 20th Century Fox

Meanwhile, over in London, England, there’s a secret meeting being conducted by members of the Syndicate.  The Well-Manicured Man (John Neville) attends the meeting and learns that there’s been a mutation discovered with the virus.  It turns out that the alien virus is actually designed to replace the human population rather than breeding with it.  The Well-Manicured Man is appalled by this discovery and upset that the aliens have been lying this whole time.

The Cigarette Smoking Man reveals that Mulder has visited the morgue and discovered that the firemen’s bodies weren’t killed by the explosion.  He mentions that Kurtzweil has been supplying Mulder with information.  Right now Mulder is back in Texas continuing with his investigation.  The Syndicate agrees that Kurtzweil needs to die, but the Well-Manicured Man objects at killing Mulder as well.  Instead they agree to take away something that Mulder badly desires (Special Agent Scully).

The X-Files: Fight the Future (1998) – (c) 20th Century Fox

In North Texas, Mulder and Scully arrive at the site where the firemen and little boy were allegedly killed by the alien virus.  The problem is that there is no cave or a research facility.  Mulder discovers a brand new playground sitting on top of freshly laid grass.  When three local boys arrive on shiny new bikes, Scully and Mulder get them to talk about what’s been happening out there.  The boys tell them that the people just left an hour ago, and the FBI special agents take off in the direction that the trucks went.

Mulder and Scully head in the direction indicated by the boys.  They keep going until they stumble across a set of train tracks at night.  While deciding what to do next, Scully mentions that she needs to be back in Washington the next morning for her performance hearing with the Bureau.  Just by chance a train passes, and on board several flat cars are the unmarked trucks fitting the boys’ description.  They drive along a small road parallel to the tracks until they find two glowing domes surrounding by a corn field.

The X-Files: Fight the Future (1998) – (c) 20th Century Fox

The place is deserted as the two special agents wander through the corn field and enter one of the glowing domes.  The pass through a powerful air curtain and discover that the dome appears to be empty except for a series of boxes on the ground.  What’s weird is that they seem to be emitting some kind of a humming sound.  Just then the boxes open and a massive swarm of Africanized honey bees is released into the dome.  Mulder and Scully run and make it back outside without being stung.

The danger isn’t finished though as a pair of helicopters chase Mulder and Scully outside the domes.  They manage to run and hide in the corn field from the helicopters.  They weren’t shot at but the message was still clear.

Back in Washington, Dana Scully has her performance hearing with the Office of Professional Review while Fox Mulder meets with Alvin Kurtzweil about the events in North Texas.  Mulder’s theory is that the pollen in the corn crops has been genetically altered with the alien virus, and the aggressive Africanized bees are meant to systematically spread the virus to human beings.  Mulder then becomes upset and accuses Kurtzweil of using him to find more information for his conspiracy theory books.  At the performance hearing, we see that a bee from North Texas was hidden on Scully’s clothes.

The X-Files: Fight the Future (1998) – (c) 20th Century Fox

After the performance hearing, Scully meets with Mulder back at his apartment.  She reveals that the Bureau is transferring her to Utah, effective immediately.  Before Mulder can object she tells him that she just gave Assistant Director Skinner her letter of resignation from the Bureau.  The two of them embrace when Scully is suddenly stung by the bee.  She collapses onto the floor and Mulder calls for paramedics.  The paramedics arrive and load Scully into the ambulance, but something doesn’t seem right.  Mulder tries to ask the driver where they’re taking Scully when the driver shoots him in the head.  They drive away with Scully as the real ambulance arrives.

In the next scene we see a small unmarked truck deliver cargo to a private airliner.  The Cigarette Smoking Man supervises as the man transfer a sealed container from the truck onto the waiting aircraft.  Inside the sealed and cool container is the unconscious body of Dana Scully.

The X-Files: Fight the Future (1998) – (c) 20th Century Fox

Fox Mulder awakens to the sight of The Lone Gunmen at the hospital.  He learns that the bullet only grazed his temple and otherwise he should be fine.  The Lone Gunmen found the Africanized honey bee inside of Mulder’s home.  Knowing the secret behind that particular bee, Mulder knows that the race to find Scully is much more urgent.  AD Skinner (Mitch Pileggi) arrives and offers to find Scully on behalf of Mulder.  Mulder’s room is being monitored by an informer for the Syndicate, and if they know that he’s out of the hospital then they’ll try to kill him again.

The Lone Gunmen help Mulder escape from the hospital by having one of them switch clothes and take Mulder’s spot on the hospital bed.  The men then slip away and Mulder tries to find Kurtzweil.

The X-Files: Fight the Future (1998) – (c) 20th Century Fox

Unfortunately, the Syndicate gets to Kurtzweil first.  When Mulder goes into the alley behind his usual bar, the Well-Manicured Man is waiting for him.  He convinces Mulder to get into his limousine, and then they drive through the city.  The Well-Manicured Man gives Mulder a weak vaccine to combat the virus from which Scully had been infected.  To save her the vaccine must be administered within 96 hours.  He also gives Mulder the coordinates of Scully’s location.  As we see, he’s going to have to travel very far south to find her.

The Well-Manicured Man tells Mulder that the virus is extraterrestrial.  It was also the original inhabitant of the planet, well before the age of the dinosaurs.  The aliens have been here for millions of years.  Those who didn’t flee the planet during the last Ice Age chose to hide underground in caves.  The alien virus has been waiting for the aliens to return and recolonize the planet using human beings as hosts.  Their only defense against the recolonization is just a weak vaccine.  The alien virus was originally believed to merely control humans and make them a slave race to the aliens, but the recent deaths in North Texas proved otherwise.

The Well-Manicured Man’s group has actually been working cooperatively with alien colonists while secretly trying to find a cure to the virus.  Without a vaccination the only true survivors to the upcoming alien virus holocaust will be those people who are immune to it — human-alien clones.  He reveals that Mulder’s father allowed his sister, Samantha, to be abducted when she was a child and taken to a cloning program to ensure her survival as a genetic hybrid.  He also mentions that the hope of Mulder’s father was that Mulder would one day uncover the truth about the sinister project and find a way to stop it.

The limousine stops and the Well-Manicured Man shoots the driver in the back of the head, killing him.  He tells Mulder that the alien colonists do not know about the weak vaccine against the virus.  It’s introduction to the alien environment may be able to destroy the entire plan to recolonize the planet.  The Well-Manicured Man then climbs back into the limousine, and as Mulder walks away, the car explodes from a bomb.  The Well-Manicured Man chose to kill himself before the Syndicate became aware of his betrayal.

The X-Files: Fight the Future (1998) – (c) 20th Century Fox

48 hours later Mulder is heading south through Antarctica.  He makes his way to the coordinates given to him by the Well-Manicured Man and discovers a secret research facility.  Mulder walks through the snow when he suddenly falls through several weak layers and finds himself in part of the underground research facility.  The odd part is that the facility itself is massive and looks much bigger than a place just used for research.  The design of the structure implies that there’s much more at stake here.

The Cigarette Smoking Man is there at the facility, and he discovers the vehicle that Mulder drove through the snow.  He sounds an alert and has everybody arm themselves and begin searching for the intruder.

The X-Files: Fight the Future (1998) – (c) 20th Century Fox

While that’s taking place Mulder continues walking through the maze of rooms until he discovers a series of chambers holding human prisoners in a state of suspended animation.  He locates Scully, breaks open her container, and then injects her with the vaccine.  Almost immediately the vaccine flows out of Scully’s body and into the tubes connecting her with the rest of the structure.  Alarms sound and all hell begins to break loose as the vaccine invades the compound.

Scully comes back to life and Mulder pulls her from the chamber.  He wraps her in a parka and then leads her out of the underground facility.  All around them aliens in chambers start to wake up and come to life.  They try to break free of their chamber as Mulder and Scully make their escape.

The X-Files: Fight the Future (1998) – (c) 20th Century Fox

They finally make their way to the surface and outside world as the above ground part of the research facility is destroyed.  The underground part is actually a massive UFO that has been lying dormant in the frigid Antarctic environment.  Mulder and a barely conscious Scully watch the flying saucer leave the planet.

Back at the FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C., Special Agent Dana Scully attends yet another hearing about the recent matter.  The Bureau refuses to believe Scully’s testimony as it’s simply too incredible.  Therefore such a sinister plot could not possibly exist.  During the hearing we see scenes of the cover-up out west as unmarked trucks are repainted and the fields of corn are destroyed.  At the end of the hearing Scully presents the Africanized honey bee that was found in Mulder’s apartment.  She hands over the evidence claiming that the Bureau does not have an investigative unit qualified to handle such claims.

Outside of the building, Mulder is reading a newspaper and notices a small article mentioning the Hantavirus outbreak in northern Texas.  It’s a cover-up of the truth.  Scully joins him and tells Mulder that the OPR didn’t believe her story.  Mulder tries to tell Scully that she needs to leave the FBI and pursue another career while she still can, but Scully refuses.  She claims that if she quits then the Syndicate will win.

The X-Files: Fight the Future (1998) – (c) 20th Century Fox

The X-Files: Fight the Future ends in Tunisia as the Cigarette Smoking Man visits a new corn crop outpost.  He warns Strughold that Mulder is still a threat to their operation.  When Strughold doesn’t seem concerned, the Cigarette Smoking Man hands him a telegram that he just received.  The X-Files investigative unit has been reopened.

So is The X-Files: Fight the Future a good film?

As a whole, this is a fantastic movie that takes you into the heart of a dark conspiracy involving a plot with aliens recolonizing the planet.

In reality, this film is just a small part of the much grander environment of The X-Files television show.  That being said, the more you know about the characters and events in the show, then the more you will get out of this movie.  There are several points where the film merely hints about subject material that’s already been discussed in the television show.

Do you have to be a die-hard X-Files fan to enjoy this movie?

No.  Not in the least.

It’s fairly easy to follow the events in this film without having seen the first five seasons of the television show.  It greatly helps though if you’ve seen an episode or two, or if you at least know about the main characters and overall concept of the show.

Personally, I love The X-Files: Fight the Future.  It’s a fantastic thriller that deals with a sinister plot involving extraterrestrials.  The awesomeness of this film has only fuelled my desire to learn more about the events and watch the entire TV series.

The X-Files: Fight the Future (1998) – movie trailer

Fans of extraterrestrials and conspiracies will find themselves right at home with The X-Files: Fight the Future.  It has plenty of action, suspense, thrills and alien material to satisfy any conspiracy theorist or science-fiction lover out there.

Special Agent Fox Mulder – “I’m the key figure in an ongoing government charade, the plot to conceal the truth about the existence of extraterrestrials. It’s a global conspiracy, actually, with key players in the highest levels of power, that reaches down into the lives of every man, woman, and child on this planet, so, of course, no one believes me. I’m an annoyance to my superiors, a joke to my peers. They call me Spooky. Spooky Mulder, whose sister was abducted by aliens when he was just a kid and who now chases after little green men with a badge and a gun, shouting to the heavens or to anyone who will listen that the fix is in, that the sky is falling and when it hits it’s gonna be the shit-storm of all time.”

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Well-Manicured Man – “Trust no one, Mr. Mulder.”

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This article was originally published at www.chamberofreviews.com on July 27, 2013.