Fans of "The X-Files" want to believe the new movie will be a hit, but it seems unlikely. For the uninitiated, it's a borderline-OK thriller with a few tense moments and a fair number of head scratchers and plot holes. For fans, "The X-Files: I Want to Believe" is an above-average episode of the series that delves into the TV show's touchstone themes of faith, belief and the unexplained.

When TV viewers last saw Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) and Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) in 2002, they were wrapped in each other's arms on a motel bed in Roswell, N.M. In the new big-screen release, they're no longer working together as FBI agents.

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'The X-Files'

2 1/2 stars = Average
Ratings explained

• Starring: David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson.
• Rating: PG-13 for violent and disturbing content and thematic material.

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Scully is a doctor at Our Lady of Sorrows Hospital, the most apt name for any Scully workplace. Mulder has re-created his FBI office in a house in the country, complete with "I Want to Believe" poster on the wall and pencils stuck in the ceiling. He still thinks the truth is out there and he remains determined to find it, whatever "it" might be.

The pair are dragged back into working with the FBI when agent Dakota Whitney (Amanda Peet) asks for their assistance in tracking down a missing agent, whose abduction in snow-buried West Virginia is the film's prologue. (The movie was shot in Vancouver, like early seasons of the TV show.) A psychic priest (Billy Connolly) with a sordid past acts as the polarizing force for Mulder and Scully, raising her skepticism and offering justification for Mulder's belief in the paranormal.

The plot brushes away lingering entanglements from the series finale with a few lines of dialogue but references to Mulder's missing sister and Mulder and Scully's son, William, will send casual viewers scrambling to remember assorted plots from the TV show.

Written by series creator Chris Carter and longtime writer/producer Frank Spotnitz, the film is heavy-handed at times and lacks an internal consistency with regards to an experiment central to the plot. Carter and Spotnitz do balance the weirdness of the case -- science-based rather than anything having to do with aliens or conspiracies -- with a fair bit of dark humor, an "X-Files" hallmark. But did Scully's Catholic hospital really have to look like it time traveled from 1955?

Composer Mark Snow returns to give the film a familiar "X-Files" sound, and series die-hards may note shout-outs to frequent series director David Nutter and writers Vince Gilligan and John Shiban.

Carter directs the film with an eye for the creepy and skin-crawling, but he's clearly more interested in the Mulder-Scully relationship than the X-File investigation. Fans of Mulder and Scully are advised to stay through the end credits for an additional scene that isn't particularly X-Filesy, but may appeal regardless.