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I was tutoring an 8th-grader last night, and she asked me what 'banal' meant. I pondered it for a bit, and I came up with "trite, or common in a bad way." But that didn't seem to do it for her. Then I thought of the ending to K-Pax, and I realized I had found a perfect object lesson.

K-Pax stars Kevin Spacey (American Beauty) as a man who thinks he's an alien from the planet K-Pax, which is somewhere between E.T.'s home planet and M. Scott Peck's The Road Less Traveled. Though Prot (that's what Spacey's character calls himself) does seem to exhibit non-human tendencies (an extremely high sensitivity to light, which is why Spacey always has to wear those cool sunglasses), few people believe his story. So it's off to the local mental hospital for him, where he's introduced to Dr. Mark Powell (Jeff Bridges).

Powell is particularly skeptical, so he does his best to cure Prot of his delusion. This includes long periods of conversation, a visit to the family house in the Hamptons, some hypnotic regression therapy, and finally a trip to New Mexico where Powell has an out-of-body flashback.

While Powell is trying to help Prot, Prot is doing even better in helping the other mental patients. Yes, K-Pax is one of those movies, where the enlightened commoner is able to do in a few days what professionals haven't been able to accomplish in years.

To be fair, this banality is only apparent after the fact. I quite enjoyed the first two hours of K-Pax. Spacey's alien (no pun intended) is another nice role for him, and his scenes with Bridges (The Contender) are compelling. Bridges is equally good, though he too has to endure the home-spun wisdom of our day--he works too much and is neglecting his family, so there's a life lesson for him to learn, too.

Before I saw K-Pax, I had been talking with my friend Garth about the film's commercials. Garth was wondering how the movie would end, and I predicted confidently that the finale would be ambiguous--so that those who like the warm-fuzzy "aliens are here to help us" model could go home happy, while the more cynical wouldn't be too put off. Now I'm all for ambiguity if it provokes thought and reflection, but ambiguity designed to satisfy an audience is just banal. 

J. Robert Parks 10/31/2001

Every story has similar elements with other stories. Hercules sounds like Samson. West Side Story was Romeo and Juliet as a musical.  The Lion King was the Hamlet for the animal kingdom. 

In the case of K-Pax, go watch E.T., and then go watch One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Mix those two together and you have something similar to K-Pax. Kevin Spacey plays a friendly alien named prot (or, at least, someone who thinks he’s a friendly alien named prot) who ends up in a mental institution. Here, he is analyzed and scrutinized by psychiatrist Mark Powell played by Jeff Bridges. What makes this movie such an enjoyable experience, though, is that it can borrow elements from other movies and still come out an entertaining and fresh flick.

Spacey does a wonderful job as prot. He sells the idea that he is really an extraterrestrial from another solar system, even when you should be doubting his sanity. Jeff Bridges does well as the doctor with problems at home. When these two are on the screen together, one should be ready for some powerful scenes that probe questions that deal with family, society, and how one perceives religion and justice. They truly made some fantastic cinematic memories.

The supporting cast receives kudos as well. Saul Williams gives a very dramatic performance as Ernie, a paranoid hypochondriac who always thinks he will get sick from chemicals and germs in the air and the cafeteria’s lukewarm food. Peter Gerety plays Sal, a guy who thinks everyone stinks, so well the entire audience empathized. There is Powell’s wife, played very well by Mary McCormack, who is suffering from lack of much needed attention and love from her husband who is to busy paying attention to prot. My favorite character, though, has to be Patrick Kelly’s Howie who is sent on a 3 task quest by prot to cure his mental disease. All of these supporting actors and actresses, and many more, did very well as they portrayed how Spacey’s character touched one of their lives.

The over-riding question that keeps running through everyone’s mind is "is prot an alien or just another lunatic?" I can not tell you the answer. You will have to go and see the movie yourself. Trust me and prot; it’s worth the price of admission.

Adam Duckworth 11/25/2001