K-Pax review

 Number 965 on the top 1000 films of all time is the science-fiction film K-Pax.

Prot (Kevin Spacey) claims to be an alien visiting earth from the planet K-Pax, while manifesting in the form of a human male. Upon his arrival in New York, he is quickly remanded to a psychiatric facility. Where he comes into the care of Dr Mark Powell (Jeff Bridges.) Dr Powell is determined to prove Prot a liar, but he is confronted with increasingly convincing evidence.

Kevin Spacey has undoubtedly become a problematic figure, but there is no denying that he was one hell of an actor. By the time he filmed K-Pax, he had already won acting Oscars for the Usual Suspects and American Beauty. He brought the full force of his acting skills to this role too. As far as aliens go, Prot is a little bit like a Vulcan - observing the customs of humans with a scientific curiousity, and, at times, a quiet exasperation. If Dr Powell asks him whether he has K-Pax equivalent of a human custom, Prot will rationally explain why something like that would be nonsense.

In the hands of a lesser actor, these explanations would sound like rubbish, but Spacey pulls off the awkward dialogue with finesse. And even a bit of humour. For a science-fiction film, there were a lot of jokes and Spacey played them well. As well as making us laugh, he pulled at our heart strings too. To unlock the truth, Dr Powell hypnotises Prot and discovers that Prot - or at least the human form he is assuming - was once known as a man called Robert Porter who worked in an abattoir. His wife and daughter are raped and murdered by a paroled convict. In his grief, Robert kills the murderer. To protect his fragile state of mind, he creates a delusion of being an alien from K-Pax. Spacey was brilliant in these scenes. 

Jeff Bridges was great too - often playing the Dr Bones to Spacey's Spock. And as he becomes more obsessed with the case, his relationship with his family becomes strained. Bridges plays a man caught between two worlds. But like Spacey, he plays the comedy well, often acting as the straight man.

A lot of science-fiction films that deal with big philosophical themes tend to be self-indulgent and pretentious, *cough  cough* 2001: A Space Odyssey, as they try to prove how clever they are. K-Pax was nothing like this. It was a simple and straightforward plot. There wasn't anything pretentious about it. Rather than vaguely answering big questions, it hyper-focussed on what it means to be human.

And was Prot really an alien or a delusional human trying to survive a severe trauma? Like any good science-fiction, it doesn't tell you what to think, but lets you make up your own mind. Personally, I think that Prot and Robert Porter had a symbiotic relationship. Prot needed a human host and Porter needed a reason to not be himself anymore. But what do you think?

District 9 review

 Number 329 on the top 1000 films of all time is the South African, science fiction action thriller: District 9.

In 1980's South Africa, an alien spaceship appears over Johannesburg. The alien inhabitants, only known by the human moniker of 'Prawn,' are rounded up into a shanty town known as District 9. Thirty years later, humanity has had enough of these aliens, whom they see as nothing more than thieves and liars, and demand their relocation. Heading this up is bureaucrat Wikus Van Der Mer We (Sharlton Copley) who befriends a Prawn called Christopher Johnson who is trying to return home with his son.

There is no denying that we are a tribal species. We are afraid of the unknown and sometimes that fear can turn into anger, as an us vs them mentality takes over. This is a theme that's been tackled many times before, but nothing about District 9 felt cliched or hackneyed. Having the "other," so to speak, being an insectoid alien was a refreshing way of engaging with this time.

District 9 is a very obvious allegory of South African apartheid. And the metaphor helped to keep the message pertinent. Wikus was a likeable protagonist starting off as a hapless, ineffectual bureaucrat and becoming an unlikely hero. After being exposed to a mysterious alien liquid, he begins mutating into one of them. This brings him to the attention of the shadowy MNU - a weapons technology who want to dissect him. They believe he holds the answer to helping humans to operate the alien weaponry. Vikus escapes and later connects with Christopher Johnson.

Sharlton Copley was very good considering that he had no formal acting experience. This was even more impressive considering that he improvised most of his dialogue. I did enjoy how he didn't fulfil a reluctant or even unlikely hero archetype. At many times he isn't heroic but cowardly. He helps Christopher Johnson, not out of altruism, but for the purely selfish reason of wanting to be transformed back into a human. But this flaw made him classically human. And he overcomes this flaw to become a hero.

And although the Prawns were little more than CGI animations they felt real. Just like humans, they weren't all the same. Some like Christopher Johnson were only trying to protect their family while others were criminals and miscreants. And the fact that we learn nothing about them except for how humans perceive them only makes them the more empathetic. You realise that there is more to them than meets the eye.

If the film falls down anywhere, it would be with the villains who were generic and superficial. The head mercenary Colonel Koobus (David James) was little more than your shouty, run-of-the-mill bad guy. He evens falls into the classic "I'm going to monologue before I kill the hero instead of killing him" cliche, which results in the Prawns catching and dismembering him. And Nigerian crime lord Obesadnjo (Eugene Wanagwa Khumbanyiwa) wasn't developed enough to be menacing. I also don't understand why Wikus would still love his wife after she betrays him to her father, who is the managing director of MNU, but I guess love is blind.

Ultimately, this was a great film. I enjoyed it immensely. It was a brilliant morality tale in how our own hatred and fear of the 'other' can tear us apart.

The Thing Review

 Number 186 on the top 1000 films of all time is John Carpenter's 1982 sci-fi horror 'The Thing.'

Macready (Kurt Russell) is a helicopter pilot on an Antarctic research base. When a shape-shifting, parasitic alien attacks the research team, paranoia sets in as the men realise that any one of them could be the alien.

After my world-tour of cinema, from Serbia to Italy to Russia back to Italy to Korea and finally Japan, we are back in the States for this 80's horror classic. Although it is only a classic by modern standards. Upon its initial release, it was panned by critics with some deriding it as an Alien knock-off. While it is easy to draw comparisons between the two, the Thing is a good film in its own right.

But it isn't perfect. The cast is large and sometimes confusing. As is typical in horror films, the cast is killed off one-by-one, but I did have trouble keeping track of who was who. Every time somebody died, I had to double-check who they were and what role they played. The cast was so large that I think even Carpenter lost track of who was who. Right at the end of the film, cook Nauls (T.K Carter) goes missing. It's implied that he's been killed by the monster, it isn't specifically stated which is a dangling plot thread. It's made even more peculiar by how mechanic Childs (Keith David) also goes missing to reappear at the end - although we're not sure whether he is really Childs or not. It was a little strange that we had this certainty with one character but not with another. 

Secondly, and perhaps, I've been spoiled by modern CGI, but I'm not sure how well the special effects hold up forty years later. The various incarnations of the alien looked a little too silly to be threatening. When Dr Copper is trying to resuscitate, geologist Norris, Norris turns into the alien and bites off Cooper's arms. The fake blood was less than convincing. Later you have a decapitated head grow spider legs and some weird slug antennae before being set on fire.

However, the Thing worked brilliantly as a horror film. Rather than overly-relying on jumpscares, like many modern horror films do, John Carpenter builds tension by exploring the strained relationship of the different characters. We slowly see this group of friends turn into enemies as their paranoia consumes them. Dog handler Clark (Richard Masur) lunges at Macready with a knife and is shot dead as a consequence. Chief Biologist Blair (A.Wilford Brimley) is locked away in a cabin after he destroys the communication equipment and helicopter in a paranoid rage. 

Carpenter also balanced Ennio Morricone's original score with the use of silence. Silence is employed well in the scene where the Macready threatens to use dynamite to blow the whole base to kingdom come, after the men turn on him. This amped the tension up to no degree and a lesser director might have used tacky sound effects. But the opening scene has the film's famous space-age score which is just quiet and subtle enough to make you uncomfortable. 

I bet that the critics who initially maligned this film are now eating their words. The Thing is a definite classic of horror cinema.