The X Files movie starts with an ancient alien with claws and fangs attacking a caveman and infecting him with Black Oil back in prehistoric times. In the present day, a kid played by Lucas Black gets infected by the Black Oil. (Lucas Black is apparently best known for being in the Fast and Furious films which I’ve never seen, but I know him from playing Caleb in the canceled-too-soon TV series American Gothic)

When we first see Mulder and Scully, they’re joking with each other in a friendly way which we haven’t really seen them do in the TV series. (Another change from the TV series is that they can use swear words now.) They’re looking for a bomb and Mulder finds it by chance in the building across the street from where they were supposed to be looking. His wild hunches always turn out to be true, don’t they?

We learn the X Files have been shut down (again) and Scully is quitting the FBI. Also, Mulder believes in aliens again. Dr. Kurtzweil (played by Martin Landau) is an OB-GYN who knew Mulder’s father. He introduces himself to Mulder while they’re urinating in the back alley of Mulder’s favorite bar. We’ve never seen Mulder’s favorite bar before. I wonder if it will ever show up again?

Anyway, Kurtzweil tells Mulder what really happened. It turns out, the government blew up the building to cover up victims of the Black Oil and were willing to kill a bunch of innocent people to do it. Surely, there must have been an easier way to hide a couple bodies? Mulder partly spoiled their plans by evacuating the building. Even though Mulder and Scully saved a building full of people, they get blamed for killing them because our government is just that evil/stupid. (Also, didn’t Mulder get infected with Black Oil back in season 4? Is that ever going to get acknowledged? I guess not.)

Kurtzweil reveals that FEMA wants to spread disease. FEMA is the secret government with all the real power. (Post Covid, it seems really irresponsible for a movie to try to make people distrust FEMA. We’ll never know for sure, but this part of the movie may have led to people not trusting the government during Covid, leading them to not getting vaccinated and dying.)

Aliens are using Black Oil to take over Earth. The Smoking Man and the Syndicate are cooperating with the alien takeover to play for time to develop a vaccine. (Didn’t they already get the vaccine from Krycek? Also, why didn’t Krycek get to appear in the movie?) The Smoking Man says he doesn’t kill Mulder to keep one man’s quest from becoming a crusade. He’s given this reason before in the show, along with different reasons. This answer doesn’t make much sense given that Mulder isn’t really a public figure, but whatever. The Smoking Man decides it’s ok to kill Scully instead.

There’s a reference to Scully getting transferred to Salt Lake City. I think this is the first time Utah has been mentioned on the show. There’ve been a couple episodes that took place in nearby Idaho, but Mulder and Scully haven’t visited Utah yet. One of the Idaho episodes could have taken place in Utah instead. They don’t really need two episodes, do they? Just saying.

Mulder and Scully find infected bees in a dome in Texas. They run away from helicopters in a corn patch. They fly back to Washington D.C. They’re about to kiss, then a bee that’s been hiding in Scully’s clothes all this time finally stings her and she immediately collapses. That bee sure likes to wait for just the right time to strike, doesn’t it?

Mulder calls for an ambulance. An ambulance shows up and loads Scully up, but then the ambulance driver shoots Mulder! This was a fake ambulance that was apparently waiting nearby in order to kidnap Scully. They knew that bee would sting eventually. The real ambulance shows up shortly afterward and takes Mulder to the hospital. The Lone Gunmen get a brief cameo and help Mulder escape from the hospital.

The Well Manicured Man gives Mulder a vaccine for Scully. If the Syndicate do have the vaccine already, why are they still helping the aliens take over Earth? Hmm. Maybe they still need to find a way to produce it at scale? The Well Manicured Man was ordered to kill Mulder, but lets him go instead. Then his car blows up! Well, if you’re doing a movie, you’ve got to have at least one major death.

Mulder heads to Antarctica to save Scully. He falls into a cave and we get our obligatory flashlight scene. He sees people frozen in ice and people in tubes. The scene reminded me of the Borg from Star Trek. Mulder finds himself hanging from a cliff at one point. He rescues Scully and scary aliens chase them away.

After they escape, Mulder sees that they were in a space ship, but Scully, of course, misses it. I guess the aliens know about the vaccine now. Everything gets covered up. Scully decides not to quit after all and the X Files are reinstated (again).

I made some snarky comments in this review, but I really enjoyed this. It’s just what an X Files movie should be. Back when this was in theatres, I was disappointed that it didn’t tie into the season 5 cliffhanger, but now I like that it stands on its own. You don’t have to watch five seasons of the show to get caught up. If you’ve never seen The X Files before, or you have but don’t remember it that well, the movie works fine on its own.

There are references to the show to reward long-time viewers as well. The movie has action, adventure, horror, comedy, and gross out moments. They even give us a little romance between Mulder and Scully. They’ve done two- and three-part episodes before including cinematic action and set pieces, so the movie isn’t that different from a multi-part episode, but it does feel more high-quality and cohesive than anything they’ve done before. If you haven’t watched it for a while, it’s worth revisiting.