K-PAX

Zone's Eye View of "K-PAX"

Visit EZ's Red Carpet Premiere of "K-PAX"

Synopsis of movie, courtesy of Universal:

In K-PAX, two time Academy Award (R) winner Kevin Spacey portrays in innocuous man detained at Grand Central Station in the aftermath of a mugging. Multiple Academy Award (R) nominee Jeff Bridges plays a seasoned psychiatrist at an under-staffed public hospital.

Their paths cross when the police turn Prot (Spacey) over to Dr. Mark Powell (Bridges) after he politely tells him that the light on their planet is too bright for him - much brighter than back home on the distant planet K-PAX. Powell has treated plenty of delusionals in his career, and figures it's only a matter of time before he cracks Prot's veneer and gets him to talk about what's really going on.

Prot says he's on a fact-finding mission, and patiently explains how his experiences on earth contrast with life on K-PAX. He finds much to like here, but says he will go home before the summer ends. As the days before his announced departure race by, all the patients on the ward vie to go with him. His descriptions of life on a planet 1000 light years away awaken a sense of possibility among them.

The patients may feel good, but not Dr. Powell. He is haunted by dark fears for Prot, and is determined to use every tool at his disposal to discover this man's truth before it's too late. But as those tools fail him, Powell begins to doubt things he has accepted as true his entire life. It gets worse when Prot's claims are put to a group of skeptical astronomers who are confounded by the things Prot seems to know.

Powell has to ask himself if Prot could somehow be the real thing. He tries to fight it, but the sense that he must admit the possibility grows every day. And as he continues his efforts to penetrate Prot's shell, he gradually sees how impenetrable he has allowed his own veneer to become-and how little time any man might have to discover who he really is.

Now for The Zone's Eye View

By Laura Alber

K-Pax has received quite a few mixed reviews. Some who expect more from Kevin Spacey, like his character Lester Burnham in American Beauty, and some who want more from an extraterrestrial film, like gory space aliens preying off humans. Whatever the case, I don’t believe K-Pax has been given a fair shake. It has lost it’s meaning within society somewhere, whether that be that we don’t like to see morality and compassion in a movie, or possibly even hope. Some of us choose to be so egotistical to believe that there couldn’t possibly be life on other planets, we are the only ones, and that any movie claiming otherwise is pure bunk. Well, it takes an open mind to appreciate movies like this, and obviously we have many closed-minded “critics” and reviewers. It doesn’t help that we typecast actors like Kevin Spacey and Jeff Bridges and anything else they try to do is dismissed. I think that between Spacey’s “American Beauty” fame and Bridges “Starman”, we expected to see these same characters. People have also criticized the wonderful message in “Pay it Forward”, why, I don’t know. Like I said, I’m guessing close-minded people. In a day and age when we could all use a little hope in any form, these types of movies should be appreciated, and not criticized by using words as “sappy”, “hogwash” and “melodramatic”.

I felt that K-Pax was quite an inspiring and uplifting film. Spacey and Bridges both give strong performances. Kevin Spacey plays “Prot”, a character claiming to be from the planet K-PAX. Jeff Bridges is the skeptical, often self-serving psychiatrist Dr. Mark Powell.

Prot arrives one day in Grand Central Station from a brilliant beam of light, witnessed only by one handicapped ‘resident’ of the station. Sunglasses on, staring intensely around him as if he has missed this place called Earth, he immediately hears the cries of a woman who has just been mugged. He walks over to help her up as the police arrive on the scene, and is automatically assumed to be the perpetrator. He is asked for identification, and his response of “just arriving from the planet K-PAX” doesn’t really go over with the police. He is immediately shipped off to Belleview Hospital for treatment. After a month or so, and many many milligrams of medication later, none having any effect, he is transported to a facility headed by Dr. Powell for further observation.

Dr. Powell has seen many patients who claim to be from another planet, or claim that aliens will invade. So, he automatically assumes Prot is no different. That is, until he talks with him a few times, and realizes there is something very different about this patient. He begins to obsess about Prot, and his own family begins to suffer from it with his constant absence and preoccupation with his new patient.

Bridges comes to believe that there is more to Prot’s story. Possibly something in his past that will help solve this puzzle. Hypnosis is attempted, and some basic puzzle pieces are given. Bridges takes them and sets out on a quest to find the answers. He is on a deadline to diagnose him or Prot will be sent up to the “4^th Floor” where he will spend the rest of his life most likely getting stuck with needles and kept medicated.

As the pieces begin to unfold, Bridges thinks he has the answers, but does he really?

There are some beautiful scenes thanks to director Iain Softley, and cinematographer John Mathieson, like the colorful rainbows of light through Bridges paperweight, signifying what Prot has told him about using light as travel. Such dialogue as, ''Don't worry, I'm not going to leap out of your chest,'' as Prot tries to reassure the doctor. Everything was very well done, and has a very positive message if you’re willing to listen to it. The Zone rates K-Pax a 7 out of 10. Outstanding work by the cast and crew.