By insisting that all plot details be shrouded in secrecy, I worried that 20th Century Fox and X-Files creator Chris Carter were merely providing a likely excuse for their decision not to offer advance press screenings of the new film, a usual sign of a studio’s lack of confidence in a product. If this had been their reasoning, it would have been unnecessary, as X-Files: I Want to Believe is not a bad film and is far better than others that have received press screenings in the past.

One wonders, however, if keeping story synopses under wraps was all a marketing ruse, as the film does have a distinct been-there-done-that feel, and is a revolution neither in the world of moviemaking nor even in the fictional universe of The X-Files. At least one or two details beyond “it snows and Xzibit is in it” couldn’t have harmed us.

The film opens with a very ambiguous murder scene, apparently still on plot-hiding autopilot from the marketing campaign. Then there’s some business about Scottish comedian Billy Connolly (playing a character we later learn is called Father Joe) finding an arm in the snow. But then – on to what we really care about – cut to Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) speaking some medical jargon.

Is this about the arm, we wonder, or is she on another case? The medical jargon is hard to penetrate but it soon sinks in: Scully is working in the private sector, there is no gun under that white doctor’s jacket, and the subject is a child dying of a rare brain disease, not a young urbanite who had his liver eaten by the Elongated Man.

Luckily, I Want to Believe does not waste time throwing Scully back into the paranormal forensics game, as FBI Special Agent Xzibit (like Connolly, actually playing a character) shows up and asks her to contact Fox Mulder (David Duchovny). The Bureau is willing to forget that he is still a wanted man (for reasons so convoluted not even this X-Phile could tell you what they are) as long as he helps them out with a case, presumably related to that arm in the snow.

Mulder has transported his office to a small back room in his home, complete with the “I want to believe” poster, sunflower seeds, and pencils stuck in the ceiling. If you don’t get any of that, there’s no guaranteeing you’ll like the movie. It’s not necessarily a fans-only film, but the enjoyment of it is enhanced if you understand its nods to the show’s trademark moments.

Actually, his revisiting of formulas which worked on the show is proof that Chris Carter has learned from the mistakes of the first film and much of the series when they abandoned their episodic nature and went for a slowly developing serial story line whose conclusion inevitably bred widespread disappointment. The X-Files works best as a more violent version of “Night Gallery” with two or three re-occurring characters. The alien conspiracy story was fascinating for a while but the episodes which stand out are those about the grotesque and macabre monsters hidden in the backwoods of America or in the jungles of our cities. Everyone involved with the film has been comparing I Want to Believe to these standalone episodes, and thankfully, the alien conspiracy and its ramifications are more or less forgotten for the entire length of the film.

A downside to this is that X-Files: I Want to Believe ends up looking, sounding, and feeling like a TV show. There’s some interesting aspects of Scully’s personal life and her relationship with Mulder, but it’s crippled by the kind of expository dialogue TV writers are forced to use to cram everything into a neat 42-minute package. Here we witness the dread return of “the darkness” into which Mulder and Scully look and about which the actors were forced to deadpan whenever their characters had a heart-to-heart on the show. Perhaps subtlety is too much to ask of a film which involves pederast prophets and live organ transplants, but a little restraint is not.

One wishes they had shown less restraint on the visuals, however, which pack no more punch than a primetime episode of network TV. “The X-Files” on Fox packed a lot of punch and I’m well aware of the power of suggestion, but there’s such a thing as too much suggestion, especially in movie based on a series which reveled in just the opposite, pushing the boundaries of what could be shown on network television. It is hard to call a serial killer plot such as the one Carter has constructed “mundane,” but the film borders on it, coming dangerously close to being indistinguishable from one of the 201 episodes of the show.

What largely makes the movie work is the characters. Despite the few scenes with primetime-soap-opera dialogue, it’s nice to see Duchovny and Anderson back with their sunflower seeds and pantsuits, respectively. They have great chemistry and make the gruesome mystery work both as a suspenseful spectacle and a MacGuffin for their ever-developing relationship.

All in all, X-Files: I Want to Believe is a happy return to the format of the show, providing the mix of wit, suspense, and oddity that helped make “The X-Files” a pop culture phenomenon. The film is unlikely to have the same effect, but with a very small budget – much lower than the previous film, which tried unsuccessfully to turn The X-Files into a huge summer blockbuster – you have to wonder if more aren’t in store. Fox can’t avoid making a profit on this, and they could probably produce 10 more such films at the price of two entries in their X-Men franchise. And once you start your thinking down that path, you begin to wonder, if 10, then why not 22? And why not air them on the Fox network?