Hey folks, Harry here... The AICN readers that have seen this film seem to enjoy beating it up pretty fiercely, though I've heard that the film has been testing well, we haven't heard from the folks that allegedly like this flick. Perhaps they can't form sentences or are illiterate or just don't read this site because we are illiterate non-sentence formers. Whatever the case may be, I should be seeing this one tonight, so I'll see for myself how it is, unless for some odd reason I don't go. But then that would be odd. Because I love both Jeff Bridges and Kevin Spacey... I can't imagine there's not a good movie in here somewhere. But I'll see.
Hey there.
I see you've already had a number of messages about this movie (K-PAX), and, to be honest, I really wasn't planning to add to them. But after catching a screening of it tonight here at the University of Chicago, I changed my mind.
Let me just point out that the K in the title stands for Krap. That's the real secret to this movie. Knowing this, you're ready to experience the world of maybe-had-some- potential-at-some-point-during-its-creation-but-in-the-end-just-old-fashioned-Hollywood-sucks cinema.
It was pretty god-awful. It's got writng of the variety that every single line which was supposed to mean something to the audience DIDN'T, at all. Probably because they were all lifted directly from some other movie - maybe even one that didn't suck, maybe not.
The film is put together such that it's of good enough quality that you feel free to pick apart things like plot and writing. Decent performances that made no difference. Sound design and music of the keenly Hollywood over-the-top sort that force emotional response where none exists. Overambitious and blatantly "poignant" light design and cinematography. Sorry boys, this "art" thing just isn't doing it.
In the end it's a hack-job of recent motion picture successes - some attempt at American Beauty ethos, a touch of Phenomenon plot (not actually a success) - which, at its utmost, could only ever aspire to be a ridiculously obvious One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest rip-off. "Oh, instead of having it be an actual human story, we'll make the dude from literally ANOTHER PLANET. It's dynamite. And then everything that was artful and subtle about Cuckoo's Nest we'll just spell out in rehashed dialogue so the audiences don't actually have to THINK."
There are plenty more aspects of the movie I could mention, but it's really not worth my time or yours - I'd just keep making fun of everything. If you, unlike me, however, happen somehow not to mind shit that sucks, go see this movie by all means. Bring your friends.
"Keith"
