THE X-FILES: I WANT TO BELIEVE

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This sci-fi soap opera could have benefited from a more visionary treatment from a director like David Lynch or William Friedkin instead of from the film's writer/producer/director Chris Carter.

Carter's rote script requires Gillian Anderson and David Duchovny to call each other Scully and Mulder so many times that you’ll wish the writer had ever paid attention to screenwriting laws laid down by John Cassavetes or even silly David Mamet.

A missing female FBI agent is cause for the Government organization to call in former agents Fox Mulder (Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Anderson) to help solve the case with the dubious aid of Father Joseph (Billy Connolly), a psychic former pedophile priest in search of redemption.

Severed body parts buried in snowy parts of Virginia and West Virginia give clues to a black-market organ transplant operation responsible for the serial killings of many people.

For all of the fan hullabaloo around its plotline, "The X-Files: I Want to Believe" is little more than an extended if atmospheric version of the former television show.

One particular false-bottom death scene after a routine chase sequence corrupts any suspension of disbelief.

Nevertheless, there is some pleasure to be had in seeing Duchovny and Anderson reprise their best-loved roles, even if shrill performances from Amanda Peet and "Xzibit" drag down the movie.

Rated PG-13. 104 mins.