The X-Files: Fight the Future (1998)

Revisiting 1998's The X-Files: Fight the Future after the release of the disappointing The X-Files: I Want to Believe only amplifies the strengths of the former and the flaws of the latter.

Unlike the "Is that it?" reaction elicited by last year's long-awaited sequel, Fight the Future proves itself to be one of the best TV-to-film transitions ever, deftly turning an already-cinematic show into a bona fide theatrical film.

Mostly filmed between The X-Files' fourth and fifth seasons, but released and set between its fifth and sixth, Fight the Future represents The X-Files at its creative peak. While fans of the series are no doubt better positioned to understand its tangled conspiracy yarn within the context of the show's ongoing story, the movie also offers a terrific starting point for franchise newcomers.

David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson reprise their roles as FBI agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully, believer and sceptic, who discover evidence suggesting a Dallas building was bombed in order to destroy several human corpses infected with an extraterrestrial virus.

X-Files regulars Frank Spotnitz and Chris Carter (who together wrote the script) and director Rob Bowman make the most of cinema's broader canvas, both narratively and technically. Fight the Future expands on The X-Files' ambitious plot, presenting an epic conspiracy tale spanning four continents and 35,000 years in history. Bowman makes certain that every extra cent of the film's sizeable budget winds up on screen. All of the show's staples are present and accounted for – paranormal occurrences, shadowy conspirators meeting to ambiguously discuss their plans, unresolved sexual tension between Mulder and Scully – but on a much grander scale. A Hitchcockian chase through a corn crop is just one of a number of memorable action scenes.

The impact of agents' investigation – which sees them hung out to dry by their own agency – allows the film to examine the issue of trust, a key theme that runs throughout the series, characterised by its popular catchphrase: "Trust no-one". Infiltrating military facilities and chasing rogue tanker trucks, Mulder and Scully find they have only each other to depend on, and the will-they-or-won't-they? romantic subplot is only one aspect of their engaging relationship.

Most of the series' recurring characters appear, including Mitch Pileggi as assistant director Walter Skinner, Tom Braidwood, Dean Haglund, Bruce Harwood as conspiracy theorists The Lone Gunmen and William B. Davis as the show's iconic villain known only as the Cigarette-Smoking Man. In addition, Martin Landau is superb as Alvin Kurtzweil, a paranoid doctor whose suspicions may or may not be founded.

The film falters during an action-dominant third act that fails to give any meaningful payoff to the fireworks, but Fight the Future, in true X-Files style, delivers an open ending that leaves the viewer with an insatiable urge to continue untangling the labyrinthine plot via the popular TV series.