I’ll admit it. I was an X-files fan. I mean, I didn’t go to any conventions or anything but I wanted Mulder to get to the truth behind his sister’s disappearance. And I actually cared whether Mulder and Scully got together.
So this weekend I snuck out of the house for a few hours to see the new movie. I was excited when I sat down with my soda the size of a fire hydrant. I was smiling as the theme music came on. And then…let me see how I can put this: DO NOT GO SEE THIS MOVIE!
X-Files is the most virulently anti-Catholic movie I’ve seen in recent memory. Don’t believe me? Ok. Here it is. (Spoiler Alert) The movie starts with the disappearance of a woman and a psychic working with the FBI to help locate her. The psychic is a pedophile priest who abused 37 altar boys. He lives with other pedophile priests who wander menacingly in and out of scenes. When the psychic gets visions he bleeds out of his eyes too for some inexplicable reasons I’m not even willing to think about other than the director must have thought bleeding eyes would look cool.
Now Scully, if you’ll remember from the show, is Catholic. And we find her now working at a Catholic hospital. Crucifixes and stained glass dominate the scenery there but if I ever get sick please don’t send me there. Scully’s main case at the moment involves helping cure a young boy with a rare and fatal disease. She is willing to go to any lengths to save this child BUT…(cue the evil foreboding music) the head of the hospital is a penny-pinching priest more interested in saving the hospital money than saving this young boy. He not only expresses himself as against treating the young boy but goes behind her back to meet with the parents and then holds secret meetings with the hospital administration to ensure that the child dies. (Mu-hahahahah)
The nuns at the hospital don’t actually help people. It seems their only job is to scowl with their arms folded as they pass Scully.
And then the only avenue for a cure for this young boy comes in the form of….you guessed it…stem cell research. Now the movie doesn’t go into whether it’s embryonic or adult stem cells but it doesn’t matter because our evil caricature of a priest is against it just because he desperately wants the boy to die. (Mu-hahahahah again)
When Scully heroically decides to go ahead with the operation three scowling nuns appear in the operating room window to show their displeasure. We’ve never met them before. They’re just mean old nuns against curing children. You know the type.
Now hold on, it turns out that the bad guy is…a former altar boy. Yes, one of the 37 molested altar boys who is gay now and harvesting body parts to keep his gay lover alive.
I walked out of the movie stunned. My $10 has gone to help the box office of what is certainly going to be an abysmal failure. But please don’t go see this movie. This deserves to be missed. This movie deserves to be shunned.
July 28, 2008 at 8:46 pm
Thanks for that. I’ll leave my ticket money for that movie in my pocket.
July 28, 2008 at 8:46 pm
Thanks for that. I’ll leave my ticket money for that movie in my pocket.
July 28, 2008 at 9:12 pm
Yikes!
Actually, although I was an X-Files fan (o.k., a rather sarcastic, toungue-in-cheek fan) I wasn’t seriously considering going to see this movie.
For one thing, oh, how did they used to say it: that ship has sailed! I can’t remember the characters or major plot lines well at all.
For another, Mulder’s muttering just got too hard to understand. I don’t think my hearing’s that bad, but why take chances?
Anyway, thanks for the heads-up! How stupid of them. Won’t even rent it.
July 28, 2008 at 9:16 pm
It hasn’t faired well with the secular critics, receiving a 34% rating on rotten tomatoes.
July 28, 2008 at 9:35 pm
its a outrage!
July 28, 2008 at 11:01 pm
Man that’s the most unrealistic storyline I’ve ever heard… to think that a Catholic hospital still has nuns working there and nuns that wear habits instead of pantsuits. Crazy.
July 28, 2008 at 11:42 pm
“. My $10 has gone to help the box office of what is certainly going to be an abysmal failure. “
You could always ask for your money back. Even if they say no, the theater will have a bit of community feedback for choosing future movies.
July 29, 2008 at 12:14 am
Thanks for the warning
July 29, 2008 at 12:27 am
Where’s Bill Donahue?
July 29, 2008 at 12:37 am
Speaking of anti-Catholic bias. I just noticed the goggle ads on the HOME PAGE for this blog. I understand the programs troll for key words, but that is an outrage.
July 29, 2008 at 1:10 am
In the TV series they had alien/human hybrids, mycrochips planted in the back of necks, oozing biological alien black gunk that took over humans, etc. Stem cell research seems so passe. I’m sorry to say, but the spooky nuns and diabolical priests kinda make me want to go and see this’flop’. Too bad you didn’t sit through till the end. Pray for me!!
July 29, 2008 at 1:32 am
If you were a real X-Files fan, you’d know that bleeding eyes (the black stuff, right?) was a recurring phenomenon in the series. And in their defense, the TV series was generally sympathetic toward Catholicism, or at least not hostile. In fact, one TV episode gave the best explanation of St Margaret Mary’s vision of the Sacred Heart I’ve ever heard:
In corde Jesu
But the worst thing is, now I’m stuck taking Sal to see “Mamma Mia” this weekend.
July 29, 2008 at 1:55 am
I came out of the movie with very different interpretations. I thought the suggestions that God can still work through sinners and that sinners can be forgiven to be very positive messages.
I thought that the priest at the hospital really had the family’s (and yes, his hospital’s) best interests in mind. The treatment was at a dead end. Scully admitted to that. In the end though, Scully was able to do her surgery, which means the hospital agreed to continue treatment since she came up with a new avenue to pursue. I don’t think it’s embryonic stem cells because everything is still taking place within the Catholic hospital. There wasn’t a big confrontation/argument scene in the doctors’ panel when it first came up.
Scully went into the operating room very unsure of herself and the course she had chosen. The appearance of the three nuns gave her the solace and the inspiration she needed to continue. They were her comfort.
I’m sure you’re as surprised as I am that we came out of the same movie thinking such different things.
July 29, 2008 at 2:18 am
David L,
It wasn’t the black gunk coming out of the eyes. It was blood. And the reason for it remained unexplained.
July 29, 2008 at 2:31 am
Oh, well, I remember seeing the black stuff in the trailer and I thought, ooooh, they’re ba-a-a-a-a-ck. So, whaddaya think of M’s counterpoint? I mean, they saw it too, right?
(I can’t help it, I love the X-Files. My son and I used to watch it together since he was five. He always did love scary stories. He read Jurassic Park when he was nine, only after he saw the movie. Ah, those were the days.)
July 29, 2008 at 2:33 am
I agree with M. I saw the movie with three other Catholics, and none of us thought it was anti-Catholic. The movie was in large measure about Scully’s crisis of faith, a crisis of faith that would not have existed if all had been sweetness and light. And despite confronting the problem of evil and the fact that all priests do not live up to the Faith, Scully ends the movie with her belief in God intact and still a Catholic.
The problem with the hospital administrator was that he was a bureaucrat, not that he was priest. And we should remember that priests were often depicted favorably in the series, including family friend Fr. McCue who leads Scully in the rosary in her hospital room as she battles cancer
and the two priests who provided her with wise counsel in the two episodes featuring scenes in the confessional.
July 29, 2008 at 2:39 am
Are you kidding me?
I was a huge X-files fan, and was seriously considering, at 33 weeks pregnant and uncomfortable of going to see this movie. I am so glad that we have not.
While I am not Catholic, I think the Lord’s church gets bashed enough from the outside that those of us who are His don’t need to add to the ridicule or support it!
I can think of many better uses for both my movie money and babysitting money!
July 29, 2008 at 3:05 am
David L,
As far as the hospital administrator goes, at one point the sick boy is sitting in his hospital bed and something is bothering him. He points to the priest in the hallway and says he doesn’t like the way he looks at him.
This priest/administrator is plainly not looking out for the best interests of the child otherwise why point out that the child is made uncomfortable by the way the priest looks at him.
He’s trying to get him out of the hospital because he’s a money drain. Later, he speaks of letting the boy die with dignity but that is only after we see dollar signs in his eyes.
And as far as the nuns go, I know scowling nuns when I see them.
While faith in God does come through in this movie, Catholicism takes a beating.
July 29, 2008 at 4:09 am
In reading your review I can't get past the inclusion of pedophile priests in this thing. Maybe it's as "m" states, maybe if you look deep enough you'll find a lot of sympathy & support for Catholicism. Regardless of all that I am SO sick of hearing about pedophile priests its not funny.
That alone will keep me from seeing this dog. Hellboy II, here I come.
July 29, 2008 at 12:57 pm
I was really looking forward to this movie. I miss the quirky, spooky, weird show. I’d read a few reviews from different christian sites and blogs and decided against seeing it.
Then the USCCB review came out and I began to think I might go see it–then again, I really do not trust their reviewers. How could they miss what you saw?
I will not be seeing this movie. I can’t say I’ve read anything that could possibly redeem this movie for me.