June 20, 1998 -- The new X-Files movie "Fight the Future" is pretty much like the television series, dark, murky and without beginning, middle or end. It is at its best when Agent Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) is joking. When the movie tries to get serious it is desperately melodramatic and silly.

For those of you who are not familiar with the television series (I have been watching it for years). It is an unending series of stories of FBI agents Mulder and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) pursuing a grim band of shadowy conspirators working for a shadowy international cabal and, of course, the "Secret Government." Like the old tale of the blind men describing an elephant, they only glimpse little parts of the truth, which is often not what it seems to be.

Mulder's mantra, is that the "Truth is out there," and it may be, but it ain't revealed in the X-Files. The television show, created by Chris Carter is a marvel of oblique story telling. Like a soap opera, it writhes with overwrought melodrama, and, like a soap opera, it has no resolution.

As I said earlier, the movie is much like the TV show, only louder. Despite the big budget (a reported $68 million) the sets aren't lit any better. There's lots of crawling around in dimly-lit caves and passageways. Many of the scenes are shot at night. It is very murky. The louder soundtrack does help with the chinless Mulder's mumbled lines of dialogue.

Those of you who have seen the television series will know what I'm talking about when I say the movie features some of that creepy black goo that gets under your skin and turns your eyes dark. There are also prehistoric aliens, killer bees, human-alien conspiracies, the cigarette man, and, of course, coverups. It is creepy, but fun. When Mulder is wisecracking and the satire is running deep, the movie, like the series, is at its best. In one scene, Mulder relieves himself on a post of "Independence Day."

Scully and Mulder see some pretty strange stuff, but only see portions of the truth. Nothing is revealed. This story can literally be stretched out forever. More's the pity, as one fan observed: If the FBI could afford some decent flashlights, solving these cases would be a snap.

That's the idea of the creators of this show: to keep those flashlights dim and to produce an unending series of sequels, like the James Bond movies. We'll have to see if it works. This first episode works well enough. Underneath the murk, the darkness, the desperation, the blood and the gruesome autopsies, lies a golden heart of goofy fun and satire. It rates a B.

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