In one of his first interviews with Mark, the doctor assigned to his case, the inscrutable Prot, played by the inimitable Kevin Spacey, states that he is an alien but, he jokes, “Don’t worry, I won’t pop out of your chest or anything.” At the time, I laughed and settled in for a good movie. After all, in openly dismissing an “Aliens”-type gore show, the movie clearly wanted to set itself apart as a more thoughtful, intelligent sci-fi film. Couldn’t be more welcome.

By the end of the movie, Prot proves true to his word: No slimy aliens pop out of anyone’s chest, and that’s a shame, because the movie is as boring as “Star Wars” minus the stars and minus the wars. The implicit question asked and answered by every science fiction movie is this: “Might there be intelligent life in the universe?” So, too, at the core of Iain Softley’s “K-PAX”, except that the filmmakers forgot to create intelligent life on Earth first. Here is a film so bland that it cannot offend anyone, nor provoke anyone to think, nor unsettle anyone with visions of a world outside the comfy lanes of suburbia. A narrow movie, most of the scenes that aren’t set in Mark’s quiet upper middle-class home take place in an insane asylum. That about sums up the movie’s bi-polar worldview: Minivan or madhouse.

Neither excites. The sane in “K-PAX” aren’t particularly passionate about anything. They are, in fact, barely awake. Mark, the character who should be most deeply affected by Prot, wants to answer the film’s central question, whether or not Prot is really an alien. Importantly, we’re supposed to wonder about what he does believe. One moment we sense that he believes Prot, while the next we think he might simply be trying to coax a rational explanation out of him. Yet, at the end, when faced with evidence which decisively makes Prot an extraterrestrial, his reaction is essentially the same when he subsequently finds evidence to the contrary. Who cares what Mark really believes when Mark is prepared to believe anything with equal—that is to say, absent—vehemence?

The world-class astrophysicists, having been humbled by Prot’s staggering intelligence, merely shake his hand and disappear for the rest of the movie; never mind studying the smartest man in the world, they’ve probably got to get home so they won’t miss Leno’s monologue. As for the psychotics locked up in Mark’s hospital, well, you’d think the screenwriter would have cracked his knuckles and really enjoyed taking a shot at characterizing a gallery of nutcases, but even the kooks are as safe as a USA Today headline. One lunatic somewhat rudely suggests that everyone stinks. Another was apparently committed for trying to look like Robert Crumb. The most intriguing of the inpatients is, not coincidentally, a mute.

Prot is fun to watch, for the most part, because no one is better than Spacey when it comes to lording a superior intelligence over fellow characters. His smug little lips, shark’s eyes, and expressionless mouth were made for delivering lacerating sarcasm, and Prot has the good sense to dislike the dull heads in windy spaces that feebly poke at him. But even Spacey can’t rise above a tedious script. No actor can. It’s time studio executives realized that.

I couldn’t help thinking of an infinitely richer science fiction film, Spielberg’s “Close Encounters Of The Third Kind”, in which Roy, in a position not unlike Mark’s, must struggle with his own sanity as he deals with his contact with aliens. His descent into final belief—going through stages of self-doubt, simmering obsession, and then blatant bug-eyed craziness—is believable and fascinating. He interests us because he has what Mark lacks: passion. Roy is crazed and impassioned by his close encounter to the point that he leaves his wife, kids, and even his own planet behind because he must know the truth. Mark, meanwhile, is crazed and impassioned to the point where he begins staying late at work to rub his eyes, brings Prot home for a picnic, and oversleeps on the morning of Prot’s departure. I am afraid we are bound to call this less than electrifying. (Memo to screenwriters: when your protagonist is slated to lay on a sofa and fall asleep just on the cusp of your climax, it’s time to knock out another draft.)

Unfortunately, the absence of passion or life in “K-PAX” is not local. I have seen this kind of placebo filmmaking all too often in the last few years, especially in films that encourage us to look at our lives with a new appreciation for life, love, and family (the prosecution calls “Cast Away” to the box) . No, “Close Encounters” would never get off the ground in today’s cinematic climate. In 1978, Roy took off in the spaceship, but in 2001 Roy would suddenly be reunited with his family and, wife and kids firmly nestled in his arms, he’d wave goodbye as the ship blasted up and away.