Hey, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab.
Haven't seen this one yet. I read it back before they cast it, and I also read the book. Overall, it's always seemed amiable and a little dull to me, but I am obligated to root for anything with both Jeff Bridges and Kevin Spacey in it. I hope the film transcends its bland but likeable source material to become something more affecting.
Here's Hagrid, who, um... doesn't think it did.
My sister Fiona has just arrived back into L.A., and we decided to go check out a sneak of K-PAX at the Beverly Connection. My girlfriend Estrella is a huge Kevin Spacey fan (despite Pay It Forward), so the three of us headed over there without a clue as to what to expect.
There were no questionnaires, no cards after the movie. I think it was mainly an attempt at building good word of mouth. There were no credits, a few scenes shots that needed to be color corrected, and temp music over many scenes. One music cue they kept playing over and over was Thomas Newman's score from the player (the film picked up during these cues, mostly because Newman is just that good, but since that score will be removed... who knows how it will really play?)
In short, I wanted to smack this movie. I wanted to give it a slap across the face and tell it to wake up. I can't say I hated this movie, because that would mean the movie produced an emotional response. It was a movie that wanted and hoped and mostly likely believed that it was something above average. Instead, it was just uninvolving and dull.
Kevin Spacey plays Prot, a person who believes he's an alien from the planet K-Pax. He's put into a mental ward, where Jeff Bridges works. Jeff Bridges tries to figure out if he's really an alien, or just plain bonkers. And that's the spine of the movie.
There's nothing we really haven't seen before. Hollywood never seems to really capture, in my mind, the mental state of a person with mental problems. Instead, they resort to crazy behavior without grounding it in any reality.
"Look - he's crazy because he's eating a banana without peeling it first!"
"Look - he's crazy because he's scared of germs!"
"Look - he's crazy because he talks to dogs!"
Kevin Spacey seems to be phoning it in these days, and Jeff Bridges looks plain bored. He should be. His character is mostly there for exposition, to explain to us the mystery that is Prot. He's there to move the plot along, and if the movie works at all, it's because we just want to find out what Spacey's deal is. But Bridges is so laidback and blase that you never really get why Prot's case is so important to him. There's obligatory family scenes, and there are coincidental side characters who just happen to show up to further the plot. There are the crazy characters in the mental ward who Prot gives hope to (the payoff for them is paper thin). There is hardly any medical speak in this movie, just another case where you cut and paste scenes from other movies to make up for lazy research. And if I have to see another scene where I have to hear the words "you're getting to close to this case...", I'll go eat some bad salmon just so I can go puke and feel better about it.
In fact, I'll go further and say that if you want to see an entertaining piece where you're not sure if the main character is an alien or just plain crazy, go check out the Barbara Walters interview with Anne Heche slash Celestia. That's forty minutes long, and a heck of a lot more interesting.
In closing, there is a Spanish language movie I saw many a year ago called MAN FACING SOUTHEAST. It's about a crazy person in a mental hospital who thinks he's the Messiah (if I'm wrong about this, please forgive, but the gist of it is still the same). I swear that the people who made K-Pax saw this movie and decided to update it with Keyser Soze and the Arlington Road professor and throw an alien in it for good commercial measure. If K-Pax had half the passion that MAN FACING SOUTHEAST did, it might have worked. As it is, this film is just a wannabe, a stale piece of bread that's better left uneaten.
Hagrid
Okay... you know what? That second to last paragraph just made me laugh so hard I think I ripped something. I have to go lay down...
"Moriarty" out.
