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alonewiththemoonSaw the new X-Files movie on Friday night. Overall, I liked it pretty well. As some reviewers have said, it's like a good monster of the week episode from the early seasons, along with a glimpse into how Scully and Mulder have handled life beyond the X-Files and how the X-Files deeply affected them. Their relationship felt genuine for the most part. The story was a bit more Millennium than X-Files, but as a Millennium fan I was totally okay with that. It did verge more than a bit into horror territory.
All that said, I did have some issues with the film. First of all, I was more than a little uncomfortable with the concept of the psychopathic gay lover. Ooh, look, men who get married to other men are just a step away from cruel torture and dismemberment of women! And then there was an element of gay conspiracy, with the lisping pool attendant acting as though he'd never seen the Russian guy before and conveniently losing the previous day's records. What was the point of that, except to show that gay people stick up for each other against society even when they are wanted for murder? Add the pedophile priest and his psychic connection to his victim, and it just gets worse. Chris Carter could have made up for it if there were a normal gay relationship somewhere in the film*--maybe Skinner saying he has to get home to his husband, for example, not even anything on screen. None of the reviews I've seen have remarked on this so maybe I'm being too sensitive, but it bugged me. edited to add: I did some Googling and it's not just me.
Secondly, Russians seem to be the new scapegoat again. I can accept one psychopathic Russian capable of kidnapping women and dismembering them. But an entire team? Were all these people just fundamentally evil? In the show, at least in the early seasons, when Scully and Mulder encountered a community of craziness, there was always an explanation for why the people got that way, whether it was Jacob-Kreutzfeld in the fried chicken or sexy Amish love pheremones or deals with Satan or whathaveyou. Here, I guess we're just supposed to accept that these people are de facto capable of horrific cruelty, capable of listening to the cries of a terrified woman and then carving her up for spare parts. This for me slid over the edge into Saw territory, torture porn or gorecore. I have zero tolerance for that genre, especially when it's targeted at women. I enjoy a good horror film but there has to be a reason for the horror. Ostensibly, yes, the reason for the horror in this case was that the Russian wanted to rebuild his husband (who didn't seem to want to be rebuilt), but that only explains his motives, not that of the others.
Also the end got a bit laughable, with people bursting into the operating theatre every few minutes waving guns around--it stretched credibility that the operating team was so easily cowed by a single person when they've got scalpels and animal tranquilizer galore lying around. And to have it happen twice, well, that's just lazy writing.
*there was a happy gay relationship in the theatre, though--![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
damiel , if you are reading this you will no doubt be happy to know there was a cuddling lesbian couple sitting in front of us who cheered softly the first time Scully appeared on screen :-)
But all in all, it was nice to see the characters again, and that's all I was really expecting, so my expectations were met. Stay to the very end, if you go see it.
All that said, I did have some issues with the film. First of all, I was more than a little uncomfortable with the concept of the psychopathic gay lover. Ooh, look, men who get married to other men are just a step away from cruel torture and dismemberment of women! And then there was an element of gay conspiracy, with the lisping pool attendant acting as though he'd never seen the Russian guy before and conveniently losing the previous day's records. What was the point of that, except to show that gay people stick up for each other against society even when they are wanted for murder? Add the pedophile priest and his psychic connection to his victim, and it just gets worse. Chris Carter could have made up for it if there were a normal gay relationship somewhere in the film*--maybe Skinner saying he has to get home to his husband, for example, not even anything on screen. None of the reviews I've seen have remarked on this so maybe I'm being too sensitive, but it bugged me. edited to add: I did some Googling and it's not just me.
Secondly, Russians seem to be the new scapegoat again. I can accept one psychopathic Russian capable of kidnapping women and dismembering them. But an entire team? Were all these people just fundamentally evil? In the show, at least in the early seasons, when Scully and Mulder encountered a community of craziness, there was always an explanation for why the people got that way, whether it was Jacob-Kreutzfeld in the fried chicken or sexy Amish love pheremones or deals with Satan or whathaveyou. Here, I guess we're just supposed to accept that these people are de facto capable of horrific cruelty, capable of listening to the cries of a terrified woman and then carving her up for spare parts. This for me slid over the edge into Saw territory, torture porn or gorecore. I have zero tolerance for that genre, especially when it's targeted at women. I enjoy a good horror film but there has to be a reason for the horror. Ostensibly, yes, the reason for the horror in this case was that the Russian wanted to rebuild his husband (who didn't seem to want to be rebuilt), but that only explains his motives, not that of the others.
Also the end got a bit laughable, with people bursting into the operating theatre every few minutes waving guns around--it stretched credibility that the operating team was so easily cowed by a single person when they've got scalpels and animal tranquilizer galore lying around. And to have it happen twice, well, that's just lazy writing.
*there was a happy gay relationship in the theatre, though--
damiel , if you are reading this you will no doubt be happy to know there was a cuddling lesbian couple sitting in front of us who cheered softly the first time Scully appeared on screen :-)But all in all, it was nice to see the characters again, and that's all I was really expecting, so my expectations were met. Stay to the very end, if you go see it.
