By Sarah (spookysquall)

Here it is, finally, my movie analysis. Geez, where do I start? *lol* I guess I should say that I totally loved this movie. It was so awesome seeing Mulder and Scully on the big screen, and like Philes everywhere, I think I'm seriously addicted :-) I must admit that I was indeed a bit skeptical when I heard the intial movie reports. Having heard that it it was to appeal to Philes and non-Philes alike, I was a little worried that what we would be seeing would be a 2 hour crash course in X-Files mythology, pointed directly at the non-Phile in some attempt to get them hooked on the show. But I was pleasantly surprised!! The movie was absolutely fantastic!! (and yes I have seen it more than once *lol*). The insides jokes were great; Mulder's panic face but especially Scully's "I had you big time." The special effects were amazing (actually I just heard that they really did use 300 000 bees for one shot.... eeek!). And I think we've witnessed Mulder and Scully's relationship gracing to a new level. But now down to business; and be forewarned! Spoilers galore!!

I couldn't decide where to start this review, so I figured the most logical thing to do would be to go back to the beginning. So, that's exactly where I'll start.

The movie of course opens with a shot of the black oil creeping eerily across the screen, and as the opening scenes unfold, we quickly realize that this dark oozing entity has been an unwelcome guest on this planet for a lot longer than most people could have speculated, as it wrecks havoc in prehistoric Texas. Skipping forward to Texas in the present day, the oil, lying dormant in an underground cavern, is untimely disturbed by a group of young boys. This sets the state for the "impossible scenario", as Syndicate memeber Bronschweig puts it, for which the Syndicate has not prepared a counter defense. They do come with a plan quickly, however, setting up a bomb in Dallas and calling the threat deliberately into the wrong building in hopes to destroy the infected bodies, and perhaps Mulder and Scully as well.
As the FBI SWAT teams mull around aimlessly in the federal building, Mulder and Scully investigate the government office building across the street, Mulder reacting to one of his hunches. Special Agent in Charge, Darius Michaud, a patriot to the Syndicate as well as a 22-year veteran of the FBI, watches Mulder and Scully warily, though he does nothing to interfere with their actions, perhaps suggesting that the bomb in the building was intended to kill them, too.
While on the roof, we catch the first glimpse of a new side to Scully; that of the trickster, as she fools Mulder into thinking they are locked on the hot roof. "I had you big time", she quips as Mulder yanks hard on the handle, falling back slightly confused when the door swings easily open.

Shortly afterward, Mulder finds the real bomb hidden in a pop machine on the ground floor. Scully ensures that the building is evacuated while S.A.C Michaud heads over to survey the damage. His orders are, obviously, that the bomb must be allowed to explode; the bodies must be discretely distroyed and all traces of the black oil fudged. After ordering all other agents and personnelle out of the building, he pretends to defuse the bomb, sacrificing his life to the greater purpose of hiding the black oil when the bomb goes off.

These beginning scenes set the stage for the rest of the movie. Mulder and Scully are of course blamed and set up to be reprimanded for the disaster. Scully, in attempt to dodge the threat of reassignment, contemplates quitting the FBI. At the review hearing, is learned that 3 firemen and a young boy are among the dead. However, Mulder does not discover until later, when tipped off by Alvin Kurtzweil, a man claiming to have known his father, that the bomb was only a decoy to hide the bodies, and something even bigger: the true nature of the project.
With Kurtzweil's tip, Mulder and Scully secretly examine the bodies and confirm that they were not killed by the blast, but by some unknown pathogen. However, when Scully reports her findings back to the review session, they are dismissed and she is scheduled to report back to another session for possible reassignment.
Mulder meets with Kurtzweil once again, and for the first time, Philes everywhere are offered at least a partial explaination for the true nature of the Syndicate's dark project.

Doomsday, Kurtzwiel explains, is coming. FEMA - the Federal Emergency Management Association, to which the Syndicate belong - know the date for when the aliens will take over the earth, and humanity will be destroyed by the black oil; the process of colonization. When colonization occurs, the government will declare a state of emergency, and all power will fall to FEMA. Chaos will ensue, and humanity will be wiped out in a relatively short period of time, with the exception the the Syndicate, who in turn for helping the aliens, are granted immunity to the black oil. Kurtzweil urges Mulder to return to Dallas because only there will the truth be found.

Meanwhile, problems are arising for the Syndicate. It seems they have been mislead; the aliens with whom they made the deal were not entirely truthful. The Syndicate originally thought humanity would become slaves to the black oil, however it now seems that instead, people will become hosts for development of new alien beings. The aliens are gestating. The Syndicate debates their next move. However, there is hope, for they have a vaccine that seems to erradicate the black oil, and one which the alien colonists have no knowledge of. Resistance, therefore, is possible. However, Strughold, the newly introduced "big boss" of the Syndicate, maintains that an ever-present obstacle must first be removed before any action is to take place: Mulder and Scully. And, since Mulder has been tipped off by Kurtzweil, the informant must also be removed. Though they cannot kill Mulder, they can divert his attention by giving him something more important to look for besides the truth. They must take away "the thing he holds most valuable; that which he cannot live without."

While the Syndicate is debating, Mulder and Scully arrive in Texas to investigate Kurtzweil's tip. Scully is rushed to make her hearing in less than 24 hours, and Mulder, as usual, is not entirely sure what exactly he is looking for or even where to find it. However, they soon stumble upon a corn field in the middle of the desert, and two giant "Jiffy Poppers" :-) - what are later discovered to be massive, carefully regulated bee hives. After being chased by killer bees and then by helicopters, they arrive back in Washington, disheveled. Scully attends her hearing (unbeknownst to her that a bee has traveled back inside her collar), and Mulder consults Kurtzwiel for an explanation for what it was that he and Scully saw in Texas.
Kurtzweil believes that the corn crops Mulder and Scully encountered were genetically altered to carry the very pathogen that is the black oil itself, and that the bees, injesting the pollen of this crop, become carriers of the virus. Thus what the colonists and the Syndicate have is a means to spread the virus; a medium: the bees sting people and infect them with the pathogen. However Mulder becomes annoyed with Kurtzweil, believing he was sent to Texas, risking his and Scully's lives only to confirm something that Kurtzweil already speculated; to do his dirty work for him, helping him gather information for his books. But when he arrives back at his apartment and flips through an old photo album, he discovers that Kurtzweil may be telling the truth: he did indeed know Bill Mulder years before. His knowledge of the project and the men behind it may be legit.

It is then that Scully arrives at Mulder's apartment, telling him flatly that she has resigned because she was reassigned to Salt Lake City, Utah. The hearing refused to accept the new evidence she presented. It's all over. With the X-Files closed, she no longer has the motivation to work for the FBI that she once did. Mulder tries to persuade her not to go, stating that he needs her help, but Scully replies rather defiantly, "you don't need me Mulder. You never have." Then she starts out the door. Perhaps she is drawing on shades of Diana Fowley, or simply putting up the false front she frequently uses with Mulder, never letting him know exactly how she feels. Or, in a more shippy interpretation, perhaps she cannot stand tearful goodbyes. At any rate, Mulder follows hasitly after her, and what follows is the most memorable shipper-drool Mulder/Scully moment in the history of the X-Files.

In a nutshell, since I'm sure all of you have this scene downpat in your Phile brain files :-), Mulder basically pours his heart and soul out to Scully, just stopping short of saying "I love you." He tells her that she made him "a whole person", that he owes her everything, and that he cannot go on without her (you all had your kleenex out, right?? *s*). It was a speech 5 years in the making; damn right it's about time for Mulder to show some appreciation for the countless sacrifices she's made for him over the years. Scully is moved to tears, and the moving sequence that follows is stopped but a millimetre short of an actual Mulder/Scully kiss by an untimely bee-sting. Good thing? Bad thing? I guess it depends what you think :-) What is certain now, though is that things between Mulder and Scully might be just a tad different from now on :-)

Ok, now back to the synopsis part. Scully gets stung and collapses, Mulder dials 911, the call is intercepted, Mulder gets shot in the temple at point blank range trying to figure out where Scully is being taken and arrives at the hospital in a coma. Though Skinner tries to prevent him from going, Mulder borrows Byer's clothes and attempts to contact Kurtzweil to find out where Scully was taken.

Kurtzweil, however, has "come and gone." Whether he was actually killed by Well-Manicured Man or permitted to escape is unclear, since Well-Manicured Man shows a much softer side in the movie than he has ever shown before. Although he and the driver were seen standing by the trunk of the car, perhaps indicating that Kurtzweil was inside, the body was never shown. When Well-Manicured Man spots Mulder, he instructs him to get into the car, offering the him means to save Scully in exchange for a moment of his time. The entire nature of the Syndicate's project is finally revealed to Mulder for the first time.

As Well-Manicured Man explains, the alien virus has walked the earth for millions of years; it is the original inhabitant of this planet. In the 1950's, the Syndicate struck up a deal with the aliens, believing that resistance to colonization was impossible, and that the destruction of humanity was inevitable. So perhaps to save themselves and their families, they entered into a deal: immunity in exchange for helping the aliens colonize the earth. The project was called Purity Control, and consisted of collecting, organizing and storing human DNA for hybridization. However, something went terribly amiss. They discovered that the aliens were not only attempting colonization, but were intending to use people as hosts to create an entire new race. But the Syndicate, unbeknownst to the aliens, now has a vaccine, stolen from the Russians, that can destroy the black oil. Resistance now is possible, however it is clear that only Well-Manicured Man sees it this way. The rest of the Syndicate is determined to go on with the project.
Mulder wonders why he has been given this information; why he is so suddenly told that aliens do indeed exist when for years it has been denied. Well-Manicured Man explains that he has told him in hopes of sparing the lives of his own children and grandchildren, perhaps thinking that maybe Mulder can be the key to stopping colonization before it starts. Thus he gives Mulder the location of Scully and the vaccine to save her, before his own life is apparently terminated by a car bomb... "apparently" being the key term...
It is hard to speculate whether or not the Well-Manicured Man is truly dead. For one thing, he seemed to be the only member of the Syndicate formally against terminating the project. From as far back as The Red and the Black, we could see that he did not approve of much of the Syndicate's actions, often going against them. He also wishes a future for his own children. Unless he hoped that Mulder could carry on where he left off and stop colonization before it started, I doubt he would have killed himself so easily. Then again, he could have killed himself because he knew his fate was inevitable; the Syndicate would do him in. Or, for the same reason, he could have staged his own death. After all, he did kill the driver, the only person who knew what he told Mulder and could turn him in. Perhaps in killing him, then staging his death he spared his own fate...

The story picks up again in Antarctica, where Mulder goes to find Scully (gotta stick this in here somewhere. As a girl, I sincerely hope this is the last time Scully gets abducted. Mulder next time!! *g*). There he finds the entire breeding area (which is actually a space ship) for alien-human hybrids and gestating aliens. The site is being carefully temperature-regulated, for as discovered earlier, heat only speeds up gestation. Deep underground, Mulder finds Scully and administers the vaccine. However, the vaccine contaminates the carefully regulated system, and the ship begins to heat up incredibly fast as the aliens awaken. On the way out, Scully "stops" breathing and Mulder has to revive her (whether or not she is bluffing is unclear, for when she comes to, she says, "I had you big time", just as she said when she was up on the roof *s* hmmm... what could she be implying?? Scully, what are you not telling us?? *s*) Mulder and Scully finally make their way out, only to find that the ground is collapsing beneath them. They manage to outrun the cave in, and a massive ship ascends from the crater and up into the sky. Mulder stares awestruck at the ship, his former doubts about the existance of extra-terrestrials finally dissolving. He urges Scully to look up at the ship, but she appears not to see it. After, however, she whispers to Mulder, "I saw it", which will perhaps become the basis for a substantial development in Scully's character. In the end, it is Scully who saves Mulder's life. She keeps him warm on the icy Antarctic plain after he passes out from exhaustion.

In the end, we see a small reversal in roles. First, it is Scully who seems to initiate the reopening of the X-Files. As well, she wanted to quit, but now Mulder wishes it, discouraged that nobody believes anything they saw, that the truth has once again been covered up. She says to him that he can't quit, and that she can't walk away after what she's seen. "I can't," she says, "I won't." Interestingly, this is the same line she used in the Red and the Black, but in the opposite context. At that time, she told him that she could not and would not continue to follow him blindly. Now, however, she seems incredibly determined. To get him to stay, she takes his hand and says, "If I quit now, they win" - the exact line he said to her back in the hallway. He nods with a slight smile, and the scene fades out to one of the Syndicate once again working furiously with bees and corncrops... and, a small yellow piece of paper that states that the X-Files have been reopened....

Whoa, sorry that was so long!! *lol* I just tried to tie everything together; to mix synopsis with analysis... well I just hope it all made sense!! It definitely took a lot longer than I thought, too. So what are the implications of the movie?? Well definitely a change in Mulder and Scully's relationship; they didn't kiss, but they were going to. Is that not almost the same thing? And, what about the vaccine? Scully said to Mulder that the "disease had a cure. You held it in your hand." Yet Mulder did not use all the vaccine on Scully. Did he keep what was left? Maybe that will become the basis for season six.....