Rating: 2.5 Pulses

Rated PG-13

Oh, Duchovny, you should have stuck to ShowTime.

The X-Files: I Want to Believe is nothing more than a misguided attempt to revive a television show whose glory days have come and gone and been forgotten. Who’s mortgage were you guys trying to pay?

It should have come out five years ago, but instead Carter and his crew produced a mediocre long-form episode six years after the declining show went off the air, as though nothing’s changed, and six years is just a drop in the bucket.

The result is a mildly interesting thriller bound to end up a regular run on the SciFi channel in a matter of months. I feel bad for the fans, because movies this bad are supposed to be a good joke you can forget about, but there’s too much history for I Want to Believe to be easily forgotten.

Thankfully they did not try to continue the series or introduce some grand new plot development in the movie, it was more of a standalone story with one old school cameo (toward the end Mitch Pileggi swoops in as a dues ex machine in the shape of Walter Skinner) and multiple allusions to the series and its loose ends, but they were pretty easy to pick up on and didn’t detract from the actual story line too much.

Strangely enough, the movie is less sci-fi and more Lifetime original movie gone wrong, with a strong faith theme and plenty of Christian overtones. I don’t think Lifetime would have necessarily run the creepy scenes with two-headed dogs and body parts, but you never know.

So while it was nice to see Mulder and Scully back in action, kissing and disagreeing and what not, the movie felt like too little, too late. “X-Files” fanatics will obviously go to see it; others may go out of curiosity, but they won’t get much out of it. And, hopefully, soon all will be forgotten and allocated to a quiet shelf in Blockbuster.

Go back to “Californication,” Duchovny, and forget this movie even exists. You’re sexier on that show anyway.