X-Files

An artifact of ’90s disaffection, ‘The X-Files’ returns—tailored for our current era of government distrust

Mulder and Scully reunite in the odd case of Canadian veterans regrowing limbs

Movies like “Avatar” have been huge hits, but on the small screen, the genre’s not doing that well

Oh, that poor X-Files movie. Based on a franchise that hasn’t been active in years, starring the guy from Californication and a fine actress who (by choice) doesn’t work in North America much, and written and directed by a dude whose career seemed to stall when his franchise did. (Remember when Fox had three Chris Carter series on the air?) This movie might shock us all and do well, but if it doesn’t, the producers are going to be very sorry that they called it I Want to Believe, since few titles lend themselves to so many snarky headlines for bad reviews. (“I want to believe that this movie doesn’t exist,” “I want to believe that I can get my money back,” and so on.) The show itself is still reasonably popular, so there may be enough of a fan base to make some money for the film — but it doesn’t have a segment of the audience all to itself, the way the similarly based-on-a-defunct-franchise Sex and the City movie did; the largely male audience of X-Files is going to be splitting its attention between that and the many other dark conspiratorial adventures that can be found 3.    Out There™.