The TV series' fifth-season cliffhanger continues in the big screen adaptation, which supposedly has a plot clear enough so viewers unfamiliar with the series can still figure out what's going on. Creator Chris Carter uses the show's mythology episodes to have FBI agents Mulder (Duchovny) and Scully (Anderson) battling a global conspiracy involving the Cigarette-Smoking Man (Davis) and an international syndicate, colonizing aliens, and related paranormal perplexities. The big budget allows for some big action sequences and special effects and the two leads have a comfortable partnership.