K-PAX

Okay…So, I caught this movie on TV a little while ago, and I don’t know how, but I had never heard of it. I consider myself to be a fairly big Kevin Spacey fan, and what I haven’t seen by him, I usually have heard about. Anyway, it hit the info button and see Kevin Spacey’s name there on the TV just kinda made my day (:
K-PAX is a relatively new movie…2001 I think. Starring Kevin Spacey, obviously, and Jeff Bridges. It is about a man, or alien perhaps, named Prot, played by Kevin Spacey, who claims he is from a different planet, K-PAX, which is like 1000 light years away. Upon this fact becoming public knowledge, he is obviously sent to a mental hospital to consult with a doctor, who is Jeff Bridges. So, Prot is like, insanely intelligent, and seems to know an incomprehensible amount of information about this planet K-PAX and how it orbits etc. He knows so much information that it impresses and even teaches even the most accomplished astronomers. We learn that the residents of K-PAX lack the family structure that we have. Kids, parents, siblings, etc…are non-existant, well, they do not know of each other. Also, the act of reproduction is incredibly painful. And what I am wondering is…why would anyone have the desire to reproduce then? My first thought when I heard that it hurt terribly to have sex was, you know what? I think that would make for a much more efficient society. Because of that, people will only have sex if they want a child, if they really love each other, have the means to support it etc. It would put an end to rape, teen parents, abortions etc. Everything that is trivial today. But then, I remembered the fact that they don’t have families. They don’t have spouses. So…with a lack of family structure, I just don’t see how they would have the desire to go through that, just to pop out a kid that they won’t be responsible for caring for and loving anyway. Unless its for the good of the community, which I guess would make sense… I dunno. ANYWAY.
I can’t remember the exact quote, but at one point, Prot reveals that everyone at K-PAX has learned how to self-heal…thus eliminating the use of doctors, I would assume. Prot kind of takes it upon himself to start teaching the other patients in the mental hospital this tool and in very unorthodox ways, actually begins to help some of them heal. While Prot was helping out these patients by making them do the weirdest things and things they would normally never do…it really reminded me of how Jack Nicholson’s character helped out the patients in the mental hospital in the movie One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest, similarly.
So, the one big question you are left with at the end of the movie, is whether or not Prot is an alien, or a human. We are told the story of Robert Porter, through Prot, while being hypnotized. Robert came home one day to find his family raped and murdered and attempted suicide in the river behind his home. Prot claims to have been friends with Robert Porter, and comes to earth whenever Robert needs him…however, being more logical, the doctor draws the conclusion that Prot is Robert Porters second personality…a personality that emerged after he failed his suicide attempt and needed to totally separate himself from earth. While this theory makes sense, we are still left to wonder how he was absolutely resistant to drugs, and how he escaped the hospital, and how he knew of solar systems that the greatest astronomers did not…
The way it ends…with Prot, or Robert, in a wheelchair, not talking…never talking according to the doctor…makes me lean towards believing he has a mental disorder. As much as I would love the alien…the fact that once his second personality was crushed, he is still distancing himself from the world in some way, kinda convinces me of that fact.
The acting was fairly good…Kevin Spacey stood out above the rest by just a bit…not as much as I expected. I think the whole him wearing glasses the whole time took away from the acting a bit, we didn’t get to see his eyes a whole lot...

7.4/10