| Strange to see film reviewers suffering so much forehead-clutching
confusion and rage over the ambiguity of film-of-the-book K-PAX, but just as strange that the dramatic
simplification of the story didn't think to include the straightforward
tickbox epilogue from the end of the book, or point to Maria
more. The whole thing had a slight air of randomness to its editing.
But it's good, all the same - Kevin
Spacey fits well as the prot-agonist, despite playing him rather less flippantly than the book does, and
Jeff Bridges salvages the mushed apple-pie of the heavily-reworked
'Gene' character. Some of the imagery is a bit heavy-handed, but the
majority is nicely done, expanding and quietly improving upon the
stuff of the original.
The book is better, though - far more initial interrogation about the
utopian lifestyle of prot's homeworld (which is half
of the book's greatness), and a lot more detail in the background.
That's books for you. K-PAX III - the "worlds of prot" - is out
on July the 8th.
| 
