YMMV / K-PAX

• Adaptation Displacement: The novels' existence comes as a surprise to many. The film is actually a rather faithful adaptation of Dr. Gene Brewer's 1990 novel, which itself has three sequels.
• Awesome Music: The score by Edward Shearmur complements the film beautifully. Some particular standouts are "Grand Central", "Taxi Ride", and "Coda".
• Dawson Casting: Kevin Spacey, especially in the flashback scene, as Spacey was 41 at the time of filming, whereas prot/Robert was 28 (and 23 in the origin flashback).
• Fridge Logic: Having a reproduction method that is painful and disgusting would make a species very likely to have died out long ago, rather than allowing them population control from rare use of it.
  • Debatable, considering that there's plenty of non-human animals on earth who have painful, or even fatal, copulation and childbirth methods and it hasn't threatened their populations. Heck, by the standards of most other animals, humans have a complicated, painful childbirth process, as a consequence of our larger brains and bipedal nature.
• Harsher in Hindsight: Kevin Spacey was forced into therapy when his long history as a sexual predator was revealed.
• Jerkass Woobie: Some of the patients are generally unpleasant people, but they are suffering from mental disorders which may or may not be the reason they act that way. Sal is the best example-he's surly, rude, and tells people they stink. However, he used to be a normal man working as a doorman at a hotel for years, when suddenly one day he began to think people stank. In the book it's a bit played for laughs. In the film, Sal telling prot "I tried to tell them, but they put me here, and...this place smells worst of all" is a Tear Jerker with the delivery of the line. He then tells prot that prot doesn't smell, which is why he's hoping prot can help him.
• Retroactive Recognition: Apparently, Dr. Powell's son, Michael, was so traumatized by his bad relationship with his father that he decided to become a meth kingpin.
• The Woobie:
  • Good god, Robert. Father dies from a work injury at an early age, girlfriend gets pregnant and to support her you have to take a dead-end job in the same place your father worked (possibly even the same job, it isn't specified), and then one day you come home from work to find your wife and daughter raped and murdered in your home. Little wonder he was Driven to Suicide.
  • The book makes a good deal of the patients this. The reason Howie is obsessive compulsive is because his father was demanding and never tolerated mistakes, and Howie loved him so much he was determined to learn everything so he could please him. Ernie meanwhile had a father who would run emergency alarms in the middle of the night, shouting for the family to wake and run out of the house. The book mentions that Ernie's current state is a big improvement from when they first got him, where he would jump every time someone sneezed.

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