VIDEO : `X-FILES' MOVIE COULD DRAW YOU IN.

Byline: Rob Lowman Daily News Entertainment Editor

OK, let's do the math.

The ``The X-Files'' film, ``Fight the Future,'' has made about $84 million. At, say, an average of $5 a pop, that means some 16.8 million tickets were sold.

Now the ``The X-Files'' series has a viewership of about 20 million, and Fox, the studio behind both the series and the film, was hoping all 20 million would hit the theaters and make it a $100 million film.

Obviously, this didn't happen. Some of the fans were holding out.

Of course, hard-core ``X'' fans went, but there were probably a number of casual viewers who didn't want to pay for something they could watch on television.

But now the video's being released just in time to bone up on all the nuances of the hit show (and there are a lot) just before the season premiere of the series (Nov. 8).

So for all you fans who didn't make it to the theaters, now you can watch it on TV. And, as a bonus, the video has a couple of prolonged scenes - one that explains the fate of one of the characters, and another that elaborates on the ongoing conspiracy. Added to the video are interviews with star Gillian Anderson and series creator Chris Carter.

Critics were mixed about ``The X-Files'' movie, which was directed by series veteran Rob Bowman, when it came out. Some felt the film wandered; others thought it was like a series episode stretched out but with better special effects. While both carps are true, the film also suffered from expectations that were too high.

Actually, the movie works for both the uninitiated and the hard-core fans. Carter was smart not to throw the baby out with the bath water, so to speak. What he did is keep the essence of the show intact while expanding on it. He did this partly by adding some snazzy effects and turning up the heat on the relationship between Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Anderson). But in essence, it is a really big episode - and that's not bad. In fact, it's good. For five years, ``The X-Files'' has been light years ahead of the vast majority of stuff on TV, and as a movie it's light years ahead of most theatrical releases. Witty and sophisticated without pointing to itself, the series plays off our fascination with UFOs and the unexplained along without our distrust of the government but, instead of merely exploiting it, ``The X-Files'' offers an interesting commentary on our culture while still being entertaining.

The movie's story jumps off from last season's series finale. FBI agents Mulder and Scully have been reassigned because the X-Files (cases of unexplained phenomenon) have been shut down (again). They find themselves searching for a bomb in a federal building in Dallas. It's not the building that everyone else is looking for a bomb in, but Mulder has a hunch, which, as they inevitably do, turns out to be right. The next thing you know, the pair are back into their paranoid, conspiratorial world.

This includes the mysterious black oil, killer bees, the syndicate and the cover-up of the existence of extraterrestrials. Familiar characters also show up - the Lone Gunmen, the Cigarette Man, the Well-Manicured Man and Mulder and Scully's boss, Skinner.

What the video does is not only bridge the gap between the last season and next but give potential series viewers a chance to catch up.

The video also offers you a chance to answer the real burning question of the movie, but you'll need a freeze-frame button on your VCR to do it: Do Mulder's and Scully's lips ever meet? Unless you were Superman, it was hard to tell in theaters.

For those of you who are ``X-Files''-philes, you might want to wait till Nov. 2, when a special ``collector's'' gift set becomes available in time for the holiday season. The package (at a suggested price of $79.98) will include a wide-screen video version of the film, a movie script, five individual frames from the film, 8-by-10 reprints of the three film posters, a video on the making of the film and a ``behind-the-scenes'' book.

Recommendations: There are a number of other new videos worth checking out this week. Before there was ``There's Something About Mary,'' there was ``National Lampoon's Animal House'' (Universal). Now the ``20th Anniversary Edition'' of this classic gross comedy is in stores. ... Warner Bros. makes its own knight move into feature-length animation with ``Quest for Camelot.'' While not Disney, it nevertheless is solid, enjoyable family entertainment with songs sung by Bryan White, Celine Dion and LeAnn Rimes (``Looking Through Your Eyes''). ... And Daily News film critic Bob Strauss called ``Sonatine'' (Miramax) a ``remarkably controlled and imaginative work.'' A violent gangster drama full of wonderfully fresh excursions into comedy and behavioral observation, the movie is further proof that Takeshi Kitano is one of Japan's finest filmmakers.

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Photo

Photo: Agents Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) and Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) escape trouble in the Antarctic in a scene from ``The X-Files'' movie.