Review: K-PAX

The idea that lunatics in asylums are the only really sane people in this crazy world has become a staple of American movies, from One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest to Girl Interrupted to K-PAX, a surreal, at-times-charming and curiously detached psychological drama starring Kevin Spacey and Jeff Bridges about the complex relationship between a self-proclaimed alien and an alienated psychiatrist. Spoilage warning: plot is discussed, but not ending. The film is more timely than it could possibly have intended to be.

There is at least one new twist at least in this tattered story line. Spacey's Prot, a visitor from the planet K-PAX, is a healing alien. Picked up by the police after a mugging in New York City, Spacey is - of course - not believed when he says he's from outer space and is tossed into a psychiatric hospital for a month. He tells the skeptical Bridges (Dr. Mark Powers) that he's from another planet. He has no mission, he's just traveling, curious about the odd and destructive behavior of humans and the high quality of their produce.

Powers doesn't believe him at first -- all of his fellow patients instantly believe naturally -- but then becomes curious as Prot proves impervious to even the most powerful anti-psychotic drugs, astonishes astrophysicists with his knowledge of far away solar systems, and begins healing deranged patients who've been confined for years.

Powers brings Prot to his house, with curious results that set the shrink off on a not very believable mission to New Mexico that he hopes will tell him who Prot really is. Along the way, the doc has the battle the usual assortment of impatient, cost-conscious and cynical bureaucrats.

Prot isn't worried about what any human thinks. He blithely insists to his captors that he's soon to head home on a beam of light to a planet where family is both unknown and unnecessary, and that he will take one person -- probably a fellow patient -- with him. This has particular resonance for Dr. Powers, who seems not to notice his gorgeous wife or adorable kids. But Prot's utter, unrelenting cool leaves us detached from the movie as well as him.

Spacey is so ironic and low-key it seems he might well be from another solar system. He has played this kind of ironic character a bit too often, and Prot doesn't come close to the blow-out portrayal of Lester Burnham's suburban bust-up in American Beauty.But tension does build as we get curious about whether he is really an alien or not, and whether or not he will go back to K-PAX. (Also whether Powers will notice his wife and what's-really-important-in-life.)

The ending turns out to be the most inventive part of the movie. It's actually quite ingenuous, leaving people wondering about what they really saw and ought to conclude from it. This is one of those very rare endings that a dozen people can see and draw completely different conclusions from.

And K-PAX is a particularly relevant movie this week, since one of its themes is that we ought to appreciate life while we can. It's pleasant and soothing.

Comments

Saw it : Ending insteresting, but disappointing.

[slashkitty]

In the end, Bridges fails to heal even one person. The only thing he might have done is turn this fuctioning alien into a comatose patient. Prot was the only one actually helping people, and his entity took of on a beam of light. While Prot couldn't take his own (borrowed) body with him to k-pax, he could take someone else's.

The movie is a cute flick, but it is heavy on the dreamy musical scenes and light on a real story.

But...

[spellcheckur]

What? Jeff Bridges skeptical about alien life?
I'm not buying it; he's the Starman!.

Then again, this is the same director that brought us Angelina Jolie as a l33th4x0r.

Great movie!

[Chrios]

I thought K-PAX was a great movie. Compared to the crap I saw this summer, I left thoroughly impressed. What this review leaves out is how funny this movie is. I was laughing all throughout the movie and so was the audience.

One comment I had to make was on this quote:

"Spacey's Prot, a visitor from the planet K-PAX, is a healing alien".

Well not really, he can just see what human treatment leaves out. He never intended to end up in some psychiatric board to help the patients out. He doesn't have some special designation that he is a healing alien. He can just see things differently.

The rest of the article is pretty accurate. K-PAX has been getting different reviews, many good, some bad. But go see it your self. I highly suggest seeing the movie, you won't regret it.

Ending

[p3d0]

I disagree about the ending. It seemed like a ham-handed way to make people think it's ambiguous, but by that point in the movie, I didn't really care any more.

<SPOILER>
I thought this was going to turn into a cool story about a person so traumatized by events in his family that he fantasized about a planet without families.

I thought we had been given clues to this: for instance, if he has to leave at a certain time because of the scheduling of interstellar travel, then why is he leaving exactly five earth years after he arrived? Does everyone in the universe schedule their travel based on earth time?

However, instead of turning and facing this head-on, they took the easy road and left it ambiguous.
They could have used the ambiguity in Spacey's character as a way to explore various themes about human nature; but instead, that ambiguity itself is pretty much all there is to this movie.

Incidentally, Spacey's performance was great. During the hypnosis, he has to portray a wide variety of characters, and he does it very convincingly.
</SPOILER>

In short, K-PAX is nothing but a premise: is he an alien or not? I don't need to sit in a theatre for two hours to grasp that premise.

Re:Ending

[CleverNickName]

...why is he leaving exactly five earth years after he arrived? Does everyone in the universe schedule their travel based on earth time?

Things like this happen in SF all the time. We would like to stay away from an "Earth-centric" view of things, but the people paying to see this movie are from Earth, and it's easier for them to grasp an Earth year, than it is to grasp a Jovian year, or a k-paxian year. Ultimately, it really doesn't matter to the vast majority of the audience, and, as a filmmaker, you'd rather have your audience ponder your film's (hopefully) deeper meanings, not how long a year was.

Re:Ending

[richie2000]

He was probably just on a five-year mission.

(Yes, you may groan now. Go ahead, it'll make you feel better)

Re:"mistake"

[CrosseyedPainless]

You think the Earth-Sun year is some kind of galactic standard? Hell, there are nine major years, and a buttload of minor ones, right here in this solar system.

What happens after the credits?

[stripes]

During the credits the theater turned up the lights, so I couldn't read them very well. Nor could I really tell what happened after the credits ended and they showed about 15 more seconds of someone (Bridges?) doing something.

What was it?

(The theater claimed it was a MD state law that they had to turn on the lights when people start leaving. I don't know how long they have been doing it, I hadn't seen new movies in MD for a while...and I may decide never to again!)

Re:What happens after the credits?

[Anonymous Coward]

the good doctor (Bridges) was in his back yard at night. The short scene starts looking at the stars. You then realize it's the doctor looking. He slowly goes back towards his house as the camera pans away, but he's smiling and looking at the stars... Gives the impression that he believes, or wants to believe, that prot is up there...

Re:Ending (MAJOR SPOILERS!)

[Carbonite]

Although there is a good deal of ambiguitity some things are quite set.

- Prot can see ultraviolet light. Humans cannot see ultraviolet light. Thus, Prot is not human. While Prot inhabited the body of Robert, he had access to special abilities. These abilties didn't stay with Robert once Prot left.

- Prot had astronomical knowledge that would have been impossible without him being from K-PAX. The suggestions given in the movie were that he looked it up (it hadn't been published), he was a savant (he didn't have access to the necessary equipment), or even that he was a missing astrophysicist (he would have been recognized by his colleagues).

So it is nearly certain than an alien (Prot) was present in Robert's body until he left for K-PAX. It is extremely unlikely that Prot actually was Robert since near the end Prot spoke as if he was not Robert and he showed no signs of ever lying throughout the movie.

So while his motivations for coming in the first place or returning can be debated, it does seem to be a fact that Prot was alien.

carbonite

New Review

[Accipiter]

I hate to beat up a Katz review...(well, no, not really.), but I have to wonder what qualifies him as a movie reviewer? Bad grammar, inaccuracies, and the like seem to say "Hey, don't take this seriously."

Spacey's Prot, a visitor from the planet K-PAX, is a healing alien.

No, he's not. He even states that every being in the universe is capable of healing itself.

Picked up by the police after a mugging in New York City

...a mugging in which he did not participate...

He tells the skeptical Bridges (Dr. Mark Powers)

This is probably over-analyzing semantics, but prot doesn't tell Bridges jack shit. The actor's real name belongs in the parenthesis, while the character's name - in this case, Dr. Mark Powell is the person with whom prot is conversing.

...and begins healing deranged patients who've been confined for years.

Again, he doesn't heal them. He merely shows them the path to heal themselves.

Powers brings Prot to his house, with curious results that set the shrink off on a not very believable mission to New Mexico that he hopes will tell him who Prot really is.

I'm not entirely sure what this is supposed to mean.

This is one of those very rare endings that a dozen people can see and draw completely different conclusions from.

That just proves that the Katz writing style is sophomoric at best.

Anyway, K-PAX is a great movie. prot (Kevin Spacey) is taken to a Psychiatric institute after having told New York police officers how bright the light is on Earth. Early in the movie, prot is introduced to Dr. Mark Powell (Jeff Bridges) who takes an immediate interest in his case. Eventually, prot has Powell, the staff of the institute, fellow patients, and top astrologers totally puzzled as to his true identity.

K-PAX is said to lie about a thousand light-years from Earth (within the constellation Lira), and is where prot calls home. This story is obviously met with a certain amount of skepticism from the people of Earth, and the point of the movie is to work through that skepticism. By the end, the audience will draw vastly different conclusions regarding the story's ending, and it is these conclusions that give insight into each person's individuality.

(Oh, and "prot" isn't supposed to be capitalized. That's how it works on K-PAX. :)

Re:You might want to do the same

[Loligo]

>Hey, if we are gonna speak english with the
>Poontangians, they are going to have something
>other than miles and years to deal with. There
>will be conversion tables, presumably, but if we
>have any intimacy with these people, they won't
>say "your miles" and "your light-years."
>The "your" is redundant.

Not necessarily.

While they may not measure distance in miles, or time in years, "light year" DOES mean "the distance light travels in the time it takes the Earth to make one orbit of the Sun".

Hence, their home planet WILL have an equivalent measurement, it may just not be one measured in a "year" or "miles".

But there WILL be a unit equal to the distance light travels in the time it takes THEIR planet (Poontangia? When's the next flight?) to make one orbit of THEIR sun.

Hence, "your light-year" is correct. "Their light-year" will be more or less (well, there's a CHANCE it's not, but let's be realistic...), but the unit DOES exist.

-l
...shaking his head because he said "let's be realistic" in this discussion...