Movie Review: Is the Third Cut the Charm for "The X-Files: I Want to Believe – Vrach Frankenshteyn"?

In the summer of 2008, the second feature-length movie in The X-Files franchise, subtitled I Want to Believe, hit theaters to mostly negative reviews and a disappointing box-office take. Subsequently, a four-minutes-longer extended cut of the film was included in the Blu-ray release at the end of that year. Now director and series creator Chris Carter has trimmed ten minutes out of that edit for a new cut of the film entitled The X-Files: I Want to Believe - Vrach Frankenshteyn, which arrives on Hulu this weekend. Laughing Place was provided with an early screener of this version of the film, and below are my thoughts.

When I saw I Want to Believe in the theater 16 years ago, (yes, I was one of the few) it felt slapdash and hastily assembled to me, and I'm pretty sure that's because it was. My understanding is that the movie was greenlit without a polished script due to the looming WGA strike that year, and the result felt consequently rushed, though it was nice to see David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson back on the big screen again as (no longer) FBI agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully, respectively... not to mention a slightly-more-than-a-cameo appearance by Mitch Pileggi as their former superior at the FBI Walter Skinner. With Chris Carter directing, at the very least it meant that the core creative team that made The X-Files so successful for most of its nine seasons as a sci-fi series on the FOX network had reassembled for this outing. Hastiness aside, the worst thing I could really say about the movie at the time was that it was fairly forgettable, which would have been a real shame if it had been the last time Mulder and Scully worked together (then came the FOX revival series from 2016-2018, and that's a whole other story we won't get into here).

When I watched the Blu-ray extended cut about a decade ago (as I was revisiting the entire series to prepare for said revival), I appreciated I Want to Believe significantly more as an atmospheric stand-alone episode with little-to-no connection to the ongoing alien-invasion mythology that had become so muddled by the conclusion of the original series that it was nigh impossible to keep track of (the convoluted nature of The X-Files mythos became even more egregious in the revival, but I promised I wouldn't get into that). And now, with Vrach Frankenshteyn, Carter has released the shortest, most efficient, and apparently goriest edit of I Want to Believe yet. For the record, the theatrical version of the film ran 104 minutes in length, the extended cut was 108 minutes, and this new director's cut stand at 98 minutes total, including credits. So what's missing in those absent ten minutes? It would take some further research to be entirely sure on my end, but from my memory I could come up with two distinct moments that have been completely excised: a topical-at-the-time gag about then-president George W. Bush (probably a good cut, as it instantly dates the film) and a brief conversation between Mulder and Scully about Fox's sister Samantha, who was abducted from their home by aliens and/or a secret government cabal when they were both children.

I understand why Chris Carter would want to lose the mention of Samantha-- and Mulder's obsession with finding her (even years after discovering that she had passed away at age 15 during season 7 of the series)-- as it theoretically bogs down I Want to Believe with unnecessary leftover narrative baggage from the 200+ episodes of the show. On the other hand, I remember liking that Mulder's reason-for-being quest to find Samantha was acknowledged in the film and appreciating that it gave me (probably false) hope that Carter had a long-term plan to provide a more satisfying ending to that lifelong pursuit at some point in the future. That never materialized, of course, as the "mytharc" episodes of the revival series (darn it, I keep bringing it up) were instead focused on the whereabouts of Mulder and Scully's estranged son William. So I guess there's a part of me, like Mulder, that still-- after 33 long years-- doesn't want to give up on the quest for Samantha. But like I said, I definitely get why that particular edit might make I Want to Believe - Vrach Frankenshteyn more palatable for non-obsessive fans or casual viewers.

As for the rest of those ten minutes... yeah, I'm not really sure. Maybe things have just been generally tightened up, providing a briskness to the pace that it didn't have before. As someone who enjoys a good slow burn, I'm not the type who insists that shorter is necessarily better, so I won't argue the case for an improvement there necessarily. There are a couple scenes that are edited to cross-cut and overlap with each other, so maybe that accounts for part of the reduced runtime? I brought up the current Hulu version for cross-reference but was irritated when I found that it is presented in an incorrect aspect ratio on the Disney-owned streaming service (much like the first four seasons of The X-Files series, it is cropped to fit contemporary 16x9 TV screens. Thankfully my digital screener of Vrach Frankenshteyn was presented in the proper 2.39:1, or CinemaScope, aspect ratio, so hopefully this Friday's Hulu release will conform to that as well, and that'll be one inarguable improvement about this version of the film.

Let's see... what else can I tell you that I Want to Believe has going for it in this form? It retains its strong performances from guest star Billy Connolly as a maybe-psychic former priest with a dark past, and of course the always-reliable Gillian Anderson herself. Amanda Peet and Alvin "Xzibit" Joiner are also in this movie (the way Peet's FBI agent character Dakota Whitney exits the film still plays as incredibly silly). And speaking of silly, David Duchovny sports a ridiculous-looking "We have to go back!" Jack Shephard fake beard for the first half hour of the film, but I'm supposed to be listing good things. The Vancouver landscapes look wonderful, though I can't speak to how authentically, incredibly snowy the West Virginia setting would have been in the winter of 2008. And hey, Chris Carter's direction is much better than his writing! That's a compliment, right? But what Vrach Frankenshteyn is boasting mostly is a newly assigned "R" rating and more gore. Again, based on limited research, I think that amounts to longer, bloodier shots of the very Frankenstein-like body-horror experiments performed by Russian immigrant doctors which serve as the heart of this X-File. The goal of that exercise is probably to appeal to horror fans who may not be familiar with this franchise, or if they are, maybe overlooked (or were perhaps too young for) this movie when it came out.

Look, here's what I've learned about myself: I'm willing to endure a lot of abuse from The X-Files (and Star Wars, for that matter) as a going concern, because I feel so very close to its characters, writers, directors, actors, and universe. It's core to my being, and that's not going to change no matter how much mediocre-to-bad content gets churned out with the franchise's logo on it. But I Want to Believe isn't bad, in my opinion, nor do I think it ever really was. I just think this movie (not unlike this summer's The Mandalorian and Grogu, to be honest) should be approached by viewers as an extended episode of the TV show. It functions perfectly well in that context, no matter which edit you watch-- though my choice might very well be the extended cut, if you can track down a Blu-ray copy of that in the correct aspect ratio. But, like the recent released LEGO set, if Vrach Frankenshteyn gets more people into The X-Files as Sinners director Ryan Coogler's forthcoming reboot/sequel series approaches, I say that's a good thing.

My grade: 3.5 out of 5 sunflower seeds.

The X-Files: I Want to Believe - Vrach Frankenshteyn will be released via Hulu this Friday, August 14.