Directed by Iain Softley
Written by Charles Leavitt from the novel by Gene Brewer

Starring Kevin Spacey as Prot, Jeff Bridges as Dr. Mark Powell and Mary McCormack as Rachel Powell

Prot lands in the psychiatric care of Dr. Powell because he thinks he is an alien. Then it begins to look like he might really be an alien.

Erich Sez

    "You humans and the clichéd slop you pass off as drama." That's the sort of thing "Prot" keeps saying in K-PAX. "You, humans with you're Jesus and you're this and you're that." He sounds more like Perot. He has all sorts of trite assessments of humans too, like that we might blow ourselves up at any time and that "eye for an eye" is a bankrupt concept of justice. Yeah, thanks for the tip. Maybe we should also practice greater tolerance and take better care of the environment.

    That's the kind of film this is. Dr. Powell works very hard and cares deeply about his patients, but doesn't pay enough attention to his family. That is, until Prot shows him the error oh his ways. The mental patients are like an eclectic bunch of sad, innocent children. And they can see things the sane can't see. Prot can talk to dogs, and although he sees humans as primitive, he is touched by the emotional connections they have to one another.

    In other words, this film is built primarily from sentimentality and cliché, and it gets pretty boring pretty fast. If you like that sort of thing, well knock yourself out with this one. Please. But I don't get anything out of it. These characters and events seem designed to provoke a reaction, rather than according to their own logic. But that gives everything an artificial feel, which has the consequence of undermining any reaction.

    I liked some things about this film. Most importantly, I liked the way the question of Prot's true identity was handled. (spoiler) At the end of the film it seems very unlikely that he is an alien, and very unlikely that he is

not an alien, except for the fact that one or the other must be true. If he's not an alien, Prot is a seemingly impossible genius in both physics and psychiatry and a pet psychic to boot. There are also some impressive coincidences to explain. If he is an alien--well, he's an alien. And one who never gives an absolute demonstration of that fact, even though there is a far-fetched scenario according to which he might not be an alien. The film carries off this balancing act perfectly, and I would perk up when ever this question was being addressed.

    If everything around the alien issue wasn't so hackneyed, K-PAX might have been pretty good. If, for example, Prot said things that would alter one's world view, like, that plants felt pain or that matter didn't exist, you wouldn't wonder if he was an alien just because you wondered if he was an alien. You'd wonder if he was an alien because you wondered if he was an alien which would mean that plants felt pain and matter didn't exist. Instead of that, we found out what would happen if you crossed Phenomenon with Contact.

DVD Extras

    The extras were adequate. There's an alternate ending that presents the same information in a different way, some deleted scenes and so on. I listened to some of the commentary by Softley. It was decent. Listening to the commentary on a film like this can be interesting in that, even though the film seems cookie cutter, you realize that a lot of thought went into it. My guess is that too much of that input came from marketing people and Kevin Spacey's agent. Too bad.

• Film overall: 3.5
• Directing: 4
• Acting: 5
• Story:3
• DVD Goodies: 6
• Number of beers needed to completely enjoy this film: 8
• Number of times I paused the movie to do something else: 1

For starters, this movie is a decade and a half too late. Certainly this kind of sentimental "kinder, gentler" extra-terrestrial plot line was played out after E.T., wasn't it? Realistically, after Ridley Scott or Star Ship Troopers or Predator or Mimic or The Faculty or New Wave Hookers 5, the only friendly aliens left are Alf, a confessed cat killer, or Cheech and Chong. This does not deter director Ian Softley from attempting his Phenomenon rip-off. Here's how it goes, Kevin Spacey plays Prot (pr-oat) who is either an extra-terrestrial from the planet K-Pax that has used light transfer to travel faster than the speed of light to visit his earth friend and collect reports on our class B planet, early stages of evolution/future uncertain, or he's a schizophrenic/savant with ESP whose split personality is a fucking genius. Yes, he looks like a human, a plot point they explain in early dialogue when Prot says, "Why is a soap bubble round? It's just the most efficient form in nature." This lead me to believe that K-Paxians should look like large, slimy, amoeba's or a cross between them and Ron Jeremy. The unfortunate thing about the plot is that we never find out which it is, eveb though they go out of their way to supply evidence for both sides of the argument. But hey, it's not like we can sue the writer in the world court. Can we sue him in the world court? [Ed Note - No, you can't. I tried to sue the pussy who in 1989 wrote in Rolling Stone that EMF were the next Beatles Didn't go well.]

What's bad about K-Pax? There are too many holes in the plot. The convincing facial ticks that Jeff Bridges utilizes in all of his work make you feel like a bomb is going to go off any second, whether he's ordering lunch or defusing a violent situation in the Manhattan Psychiatric Ward, and there is only so much I can take of that. Bridges has to remember doing movies like The Fisher King and The Big Lebowski and see that, while K-Pax is no Dude Where's My Car?, it's not far from it in terms of overall crapulence. The soundtrack is like being stuck in an elevator with Enya playing for six hours. There is no sex in the movie, hot chicks, or strip clubs. The title. Seriously, saying you're from K-Pax is kind of like saying you're from the Vidal Sassoon Galaxy in the Aqua Net Solar System. Either this is the crassest form of product placement or Revlon should get a truckload of lawyers and sue the producers into destitution. Wait a minute That gives me an idea for a porn script - an all black anal movie based on Soul Glow! The "golly gee" and the "shucks" moments all but ruin the excellent delivery of Kevin Spacey on an otherwise pile of shit script and, even though he is good, Kevin Spacey isn't Jody Foster and this isn't Contact. The DVD rental doesn't come with Xanex or Jeigarmeister, two things that go great together and would have made this movie worth sleeping through. The ending. Is Prot nuts, or is he an alien? If he is an alien then why did he leave his body behind? If he's human, then how did he know about distant galaxies that are unseen without a telescope? And how could he plot the course of their planets from memory to such a degree that leading astrophysicists could only conclude that he had to have been there? If you're going to pull my dick the whole movie, the least you could do is spell it out for me. The DVD extra's. Dumb and pointless, including un-watchable Director's commentary, boring deleted scenes, and assorted other garbage.

What's good about K-Pax? Kevin Spacey, need I say more? The lack of special effects. This may seem like a mark against the movie but the way I see it most movies have such shitty effects anyway, yes even Spielberg the Terrible's movies, that they ruin parts of the film. It would have been easy to have sunk to the level of other directors and used some kind of alien gimmick, even something like V or Cocoon and ruined the little that was good in the film. Jar Jar Binks was not in the movie. It's true. The music on the DVD menu can be turned down and used for sleeping. There were no pop stars or rappers in K-Pax. No guest appearances by Snoop Dogg, L.L. Cool J, Kid Rock, or Fred Durst. In fact, there were no cameos of any kind, and that is like a breath of fresh air.

Overall, K-Pax is a totally forgettable movie that could have gone in a different direction and done much better. Jeff Bridges and Kevin Spacey have every right to feel ripped off by the way K-Pax turned out. Same goes for the viewing audience.

RUTHLESS RATINGS

• Overall - 3

• Acting - 7

• Direction - 2

• Number of times I wished I was on Endor - 2
• Number of times i wished I had watched Femalien instead - 6

• Number of times I wondered if Steve Guttenberg is going to do another Police Academy movie - 2

• Number of times I stroked it - 0