This week at the movies, we learn that the truth is out there (The X-Files: I Want to Believe, starring David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson) and that step-sibling rivalry can be treacherous (Step Brothers, starring Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly). What do the critics have to say?

After a long layoff, Fox Mulder and Dana Scully are back in The X-Files: I Want to Believe. Unfortunately, critics say the famed paranormal investigators have found themselves in a middling police procedural, one that would be better suited to the boob tube. The plot finds Mulder (David Duchovny) and Scully (Gillian Anderson), now retired from the FBI and living together; they come out of retirement to solve a case of a missing agent, with help from a defrocked priest (Billy Connelly) who is having visions of the vanished lawman. The pundits say X-Files lacks the evocative atmosphere of the series, and too slavishly follows a hackneyed serial-killer plot while skimping on suspense. At 31 percent on the Tomatometer, The X-Files may leave both diehards and neophytes Wanting more. (Check out this week's Total Recall, in which we cover our favorite movie conspiracies.)

"Turns out The Truth was on Wikipedia all along."

Step Brothers may be the latest in a string of comedies about juvenile man-children whop refuse to grow up, but critics say it's got enough crazy laughs to be worth another go. Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly star as two aggressively slothful middle-aged dudes whose parents get married. The two are forced to move in together, and their mutual antipathy threatens their parents' happiness. The pundits say Step Brothers is not the place to turn for sophisticated comedy -- it's loaded with sophomoric smuttiness and surprisingly violent slapstick -- but the antics are so relentless that resistance may be futile futile for some, especially if you have a soft spot for the hi-jinks of Ferrell and Reilly. It's currently at 53 percent on the Tomatometer.

A brain teaser for you: which of these men drives a Dodge Stratus?

Also opening this week in limited release:

• Man on Wire, a documentary about a Frenchman's plot to tightrope walk the Twin Towers in 1974, is at 100 percent.

• The Order of Myths, a doc about racially segregated Mardi Gras celebrations in Alabama, is at 100 percent.

• Back to Normandy, a doc that interviews the participants in Rene Allio's lost 1975 classic Moi, Pierre Riviere is at 87 percent.

• Boy A, a drama about a recently-released convict's uncertain attempt to readjust to society, is at 80 percent.

• Brideshead Revisited, a suspenseful adaptation of Evelyn Waugh's famed novel starring Emma Thompson and Michael Gambon, is at 78 percent.

• American Teen, a quasi-doc about the lives, loves, and tribulations of five high schoolers, is at 68 percent.

• Neil Young's CSNY: Déjà Vu, a doc about the famed supergroup's 2006 tour, is at 62 percent.

• Bustin' Down the Door, a doc about a group of Australians and South Africans who changed the surfing landscape in the mid-1970s, is at 60 percent.
  

  Crosby Stills Nash & Young: neither burning out nor fading away.

  Recent Gillian Anderson Movies:
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  39% -- Straightheads (2007)
  87% -- The Last King of Scotland (2006)
  91% -- Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story (2006)
  60% -- The Mighty Celt (2005)
  82% -- The House of Mirth (2000)
  

  Recent David Duchovny Movies:
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  65% -- The TV Set (2007)
  64% -- Things We Lost in the Fire (2007)
  27% -- Trust the Man (2006)
  10% -- House of D (2005)
  44% -- Connie and Carla (2004)