Fast-paced, sharply-written and enjoyably messy, 20th Century Fox's "Fight the Future" takes the best aspects of the series and shoots them up with adrenaline: alien invaders, shadow governments, mysterious informants, and a little bee harvesting for good measure.

The film cryptically begins with a 37,000-year jump in time from the Ice Age to present day Texas, where a little boy falls prey to an ominous black virus. A seemingly unconnected switch of scenes brings us to a terrorist bombing where we hear the familiar banter of our flirting heroes.

Since this is The X-Files, everything is (of course) an interlocking conspiracy; terrorist activity linked to secret documents linked to the evils of the Smoking Man linked to the aliens. It takes the help of Kurzweil (Martin Landau), an old friend of Fox's father, to point the wayward agent in the right direction.

Reinvigorated by his new source, he and his skeptical partner travel to the ends of the earth, from the deserts of Texas to the icy plains of Antarctica, out to stop the alien menace. Borrowing from Ridley Scott's "Aliens," these little green men are more like monsters and their motives far more sinister -- but for the X-Files, it's not just a crew at risk, but the entire planet.

Fitting its new 40 foot silver screen size, "Fight the Future" is epic -- studded with cliff-hanger-like extravangazas and impressive special effects. However, the convoluted plot doesn't measure up. Sure, fans will bask in the jigsaw puzzle that has always made the series satisfying, but neophytes will likely walk away in a daze.