K-Pax (Collector's Edition)
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Movie Reviews of K-Pax (Collector's Edition)
Movie Review: The mystery never fades...
Summary: 5 Stars
I agree with those who consider this a sorely underrated film. When one approaches a film such as `K-PAX' it is easy to disregard it as nonsensical fluff. I remember when my parents suggested the film. I was very, very hesitant. They even let me borrow their personal copy they just had to buy after watching the film. They thought it was that good. Still, I was hesitant. I had other things to watch that must have been better than this.
It's funny, because I absolutely love both Jeff Bridges and Kevin Spacey.
After watching `K-PAX' I have a completely different outlook. The film somewhat drops the ball in the end for many, but then again I have this aching feeling that it was intentional. The ambiguous ending can be frustrating, especially in a world that demands answers. Thankfully, I've grown to accept and even relish in the `mystery' presented in cinema, and so over time the ending to `K-PAX' has become less irritating and more engrossing to me. I have contemplated and drawn my own conclusions that I hope are correct, yet I'm still silently aching to know for sure just WHAT happened.
Was he?
Wasn't he?
The film revolves around a Dr. named Mark Powell whose new psychiatric patient Prot believes that he is from the planet K-PAX and that he has traveled here using light rays in order to study our planet for a report he will submit when he gets home. He has a date of his departure. July 27th. He is incredibly knowledgeable of solar systems and stars and planets and he is so confident in his identity that he comes across entirely convincing.
But he's crazy; right?
I really wish I knew the answer to that question, but then again some of the beauty in `K-PAX', and films like it, is that constant mystifying resolution. We will ponder the questions raised for quite some time, far longer than if the film had given us an out in the end.
The acting here is sensational. Both Bridges and Spacey nail their respective characters. I am drawn to say that, as an actor, Bridges is the better man; but in this film Spacey really shines and totally steals the film. Sure, he has the baitier character, but it is what he does with the character that really stays with you. Spacey knows how to evoke sympathy, and he is one of the only actors I can define as an `infectious crier'. Like Claire Danes, when Kevin Spacey cries, I cry. I still get chills just thinking about the scene where he first goes under hypnosis. It is so emotionally fluid and beautifully constructed. He effortlessly shifts in and out of his characters, brilliantly concocting a character we are drawn into.
So, I want to go out on a limb here and say that `K-PAX' may be one of those under-seen gems, a film that many shrug off as unworthy of their time but will be proved mistaken when they finally give it a chance. It sure is one of the most surprising and essentially rewarding cinematic experiences for me personally.
Highly recommended!
Movie Review: Incredible!
Summary: 5 Stars
A mysterious stranger (Kevin Spacey) "appears" out of thin air in New York's Grand Central Station claiming to be a visitor from the planet K-PAX, which is located in another galaxy many light years away. The benevolent foreigner, who goes by the name Prot, is detained by the NYPD and turned over to the Psychiatric Institute of Manhattan, where Dr. Mark Powell (Jeff Bridges) takes a gradual interest in the man's story. Over time, Prot shares countless anecdotes of his utopian planet with the hospital's residents and staff. His descriptions paint a world free from laws, families and social conflicts, instilling hope in the patients and raising the suspicions of the doctors. However, Powell has difficulty proving Prot's foolish claims to be false. In fact, the peculiar patient displays an infinite knowledge of subjects he shouldn't know anything about, unless of course he really was from another galaxy all together. So when Prot announces one day that he plans to return to K-PAX, Powell experiences a sense of urgency to solve this man's riddle before he loses him forever.
Director Iain Softley, who made quiet little splashes in the Hollywood pond directing a tearjerker (The Wings of the Dove) and a barn burner (Backbeat), crafts an extremely engaging and introspective science-fiction mystery out of author Gene Brewer's original novel. Much like Spacey's character, K-PAX makes obvious, somewhat universal observations about extremely broad topics, such as man's daily struggle to exist in a family or in society, yet still manages to touch a nerve. After establishing its intrinsic desire to gently poke and prod our planet's problems, though, Charles Leavitt's fabulous, intelligent screenplay goes two steps further, ratcheting up the mystery of Prot's past as you beg for a legitimate resolution.
K-PAX features exquisite performances by leading men Bridges and Spacey, though it's the latter who is given the most rope while Bridges is left to reel him in from time to time. Most of K-PAX's astute observations and valuable life lessons spew forth from Spacey's Prot, and his almost-ambivalent delivery fits the film's mood perfectly. It's as if the film's teachings were, as he often put it, "common knowledge." As proven in Bryan Singer's The Usual Suspects and David Fincher's Seven, Spacey excels when his character possesses more knowledge than not only his co-stars, but the audience. His performance is confident, assured and extremely natural - one of his best, and enough to make us forget the sludge that was Pay It Forward.
K-PAX only falters when it attempts to resolve the delicious mystery it has established, because it can't quite answer all of the questions it has raised. Instead of sewing up Prot's case, Softley tacks on an ambiguous open-ended conclusion that, like life itself, just leaves us with more queries to explore. It's frustrating, yes, but it contributes to the film's allure. If you're not discussing this marvelous film on the ride home, you didn't pay close enough attention.
Movie Review: Kevin Spacey Rules!
Summary: 5 Stars
I think that Kevin Spacey really is the best part of this film. He is so incredibly talented and human in his role of Prot, an alien from the planet, K-PAX. This is the kind of film where by the end you are contemplating what the truth is. That said, I will not say much more about the outcome of the story.
I think that K-PAX as a film is an okay movie. It's not the greatest of the year. So why do I give it five stars?
SPACEY!! This is an actor who loves his craft and seems genuinely happy doing it. He takes on a project and dives into it full force, putting his heart and soul into every role he takes on. He is very passionate about his work.
For those diehard fans of Kevin Spacey, this film is worth the rental fee. He is so wonderful in this. He truly brings the character of Prot to life, and you feel that you really know him. He delivers his lines so perfectly, and he has a great range of emotion. He isn't afraid of anything. This is a true professional actor!
K-PAX is the story of a psychiatrist, played by, in my opinion, a miscast Jeff Bridges. Jeff plays Dr. Mark Powell. A man that is so into his job that he loses his first wife, and his son won't even talk to him. He is remarried to Rachel, played by Mary MacCormack. They have two daughters together. So, I believe Mark is trying to be more into family, but he is really just into his work so deep he often ignores them.
He especially gets into his work when he gets a new patient, Prot, a self-proclaimed alien, who appears as a human.
Prot's knowledge of astronomy is incredible, and impresses the colleagues of Powell's astronomer friend.
Dr. Powell is amazed at Prot. He is totally enthralled by this patient and spends a great deal of his time trying to help him get mentally well. Prot seems perfectly fine except for being an alien from the planet K-PAX.
All the while, the other patients are totally amorous of Prot. He wants to help, and does help to cure a few of the other patients.
Dr. Powell gets so close to Prot that he invites him over to his house. This is when the trouble starts. Water, sprinklers... and Prot goes from a calm man pushing a little girl on a swing to a raving lunatic.
Of course, Powell only gets more entrigued and wants to try hypnosis. Through hypnosis, Powell is able to learn of Prot's life and the truth...or does he?
Even though it is a thought provoking film, Jeff Bridges character is just confusing. It is never made clear to the audience that he is good. Sure, he is a doctor of psychiatry, but that doesn't make him a saint. His priorities are out of whack, but he wants to help people too. Maybe we aren't supposed to like him but we want to? Also, Bridges looked tired and bored in this movie. His acting was terrible.
I digress. Spacey is worth watching. It's an interesting enough story, and I can't say enough good things about Spacey's performance.
Movie Review: Painting With Light
Summary: 5 Stars
There are many different reasons for watching a movie, and I suppose I have about as many of them as anyone: sometimes I'll watch a slapstick comedy just for the chuckles, or a grand historical epic so I can be transported to a world that's simultaneously fantastic and familiar, or a murder mystery for the fun of solving a puzzle. But whenever I saw previews or reviews for K-Pax I couldn't for the life of me figure why I'd want to watch this movie. As far as I could tell I knew what the movie was: a character study involving someone who may or may not be an alien, being treated in a mental institution by someone who may or may not believe he's an alien. The way I figured it, he either is or he isn't. If he is, it's a fish-out-of-water story with a sci-fi slant. If he isn't, it's a one-flew-over-the-cuckoo's-nest story with a little ambiguity thrown in but resolved in the end. Neither of these were movies that I'd seek out, but I found myself again and again drawn to watching K-Pax, waiting for the mood to strike me. To be sure, I love Jeff Bridges and Kevin Spacey in just about anything they've done, and I had no reason to believe I wouldn't be watching a well-made, well-acted movie, just perhaps one not quite to my taste.
So imagine my surprise when I found myself stunned by not only the movie's emotional power, but by it's visual beauty. I suppose it's a testament to the limited imaginations of the people who decide how to craft a trailer or a blurb in order to sell a movie, but K-Pax it seems to me has been done a terrible disservice, because it's promotionals all seem to focus on the mystery of "is he or isn't he?", which in my opinion misses the entire thrust of the movie.
Amazingly, the director and his cinematographer have deliberately and lovingly crafted a dreamlike fantasy that exists squarely and believably within the everyday world of overworked urban professionals and weary suburban commuters. From K-Pax's opening scene, which follows a feather as it drifts down a column of light into the sun-drenched vastness of Union Station, to the heartbreaking finale, the movie gently but inexorably reveals to us the lives of the two protagonists, and eventually the intertwining of those lives, all the while painting around them a world of ineffable beauty, a world defined by light.
I feel I can without reservation place K-Pax squarely within the tradition of those films to which I can go when my reason for watching is to revel in their pure visual beauty, films like Ridley Scott's "The Duellists" and "Bladerunner", or Stanley Kubrick's "A Clockwork Orange" and "Barry Lyndon". It is however Krzysztof Kie'lowski's "Blue" that most often occurs to me when I watch K-Pax, and it's in the company of these great films that I believe K-Pax belongs.
Movie Review: One Of The Best Movies I've Seen In A Long Time
Summary: 5 Stars
My wife and I just saw K-Pax last night and both of us loved it!
We actually were so mesmerised by this film that we stayed up much later than we normally would during a week night. Typically we'd just stop the film and pick up the follwing evening, not with this movie, we had to see the whole thing. In fact one of the first things we talked about this morning was the film and that is quite rare.
If you are looking for an action picture, this isn't it, if you're looking for a fun light hearted movie, you are in the wrong place, if you're looking for mindless entertainment, search elsewhere.
The reason I'm saying these things is because a lot of previous reviewers that gave this movie a negative review seemed to base it on expectations that had nothing to do with this movie. Perhaps they thought "Oh, an Alien movie, maybe it'll be like "Men In Black" or something along those lines, who knows?
While I don't want to do a review on other reviewers I would hate for someone to miss out on the opportunity for seeing a movie that has tremendous depth, that certainly has it's share of lighter moments as well, but this movie will make you think and if thinking isn't enjoyable for you then you won't enjoy this movie.
This movie leaves many things unresolved and ends with a sense of mystery, a lot like the way many things in life are. Centered around "Prot" who is from the planet "K-Pax" he is sent to a place for people with Mental illness. Keven Spacey is incredible in his portrayal of this "K-Paxian" and Jeff Bridges is equally brilliant in the role of his Doctor.
Throughout the movie you will be as challenged as the Doctor in trying to come to a conclusion about whether "Prot" is just a nut-job with a "Savant like" intelligence or whether he is in fact an Alien.
I won't go into too great detail as many others have already, plus I don't like to give much of a movie away. But this movie is deep in the way "The Green Mile" is deep. I found myself waking up last night thinking about this film and that almost never happens. In fact, "The Green Mile" was the last film that had this effect on me.
There are some highly disturbing moments in this and I would not recommend this to viewers under 14 or 15 years old. So that being said, this is not in my opinion a family film.
For those old enough and with the right mindset this is a film I would HIGHLY recommend!