K-PAX

Excellent actors, sensitive directing. But what’s up with that screenplay? From roughly the midpoint (the first hypnosis), K-PAX develops in a direction that’s completely different from where it was initially headed and its conclusion is the culmination of a story that never took off in the film! Not to mention that the hopes offered by the promising start and the whole first half are thus sucked into a black hole between Mercury and Pluto. (17/08/2002)

Two incredibly different halves. While the first one is captivating, thoughtful, full of valuable ideas, the second one is scattered, with a poor script deviation and too much pseudo-psychology – it looks like it switched to a completely different film. Pleasant philosophy is alternated with hard-to-believe psychology, which ultimately spoils the whole impression and gives the feeling that they didn't know what they were doing. (03/02/2014)

I don't even know which interpretation is better. If the one where prot is an alien from an advanced civilization whose hobby is to ride through space to show off for less evolved beings. Or the one where he's actually a human who overly tugs at the socks of his surroundings and, through knowing everyone by name, announces the arrival of a bluebird in his backyard and creates a plausible simulation of an alien star system in a planetarium to force a skeptical psychiatrist to pay more attention to his family. In any case, the biggest sci-fi budget is 68m for a film set in three rooms and one garden, the point of which is the importance of bourgeois family togetherness in the face of higher knowledge. But maybe that's subversive enough that the film itself is implying how aware it is of the fact that it's constantly communicating in condescending gestures and simple mottos with which 15-year-old philosophers, mothers on their fourth maternity leave (definitely not a vacation), and people who feel like they've figured it all out after a powerful experience with hallucinogens can best identify. Either way, nothing describes my impressions of the whole spectacle like this short story: ___ "There was an old man. He was a kind of sage. He got up in the morning and, having nothing to do, went out for a walk and glossed wittily on the world around him. With understanding irony he smiled at people's foibles, and with gentle humor he pointed out minor wrongs and iniquities. He talked to everyone – from diggers to shop assistants, workers to clerks and managers; they all knew him well. ...No wonder people one day conspired to beat the old man to death." (30/03/2019)

An interesting conversational drama that manages to entertain despite the absence of any significant plot. Great performances, beautiful cinematography, the script is a bit weaker in the last act, but overall, this is a nice film. The ending feels pretty ambiguous, so you can choose your own interpretation. I’m satisfied with it, four stars. (11/06/2009)

A beautiful film, unforgettable. I didn’t breathe out from beginning to end, and although I was always wondering whether Prot really came to us from somewhere or not, in the end I didn't really care. That's not what it was about at all. The acting, Shearmur's amazing music and the camera full of light. Sensational. (13/12/2012)