Spoiler Points for Martian Child (2007)

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Spoiler Points for Martian Child (2007) [PG] 108 minutes
WIP™ Scale: $13.25
Film's Official Website • Film's Trailer

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Click to read the non-spoiler review

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The ending:
After finally being awarded full custody of Dennis (Bobby Coleman), David (John Cusack) has to have his first uncomfortable parental moment when he has to tell Dennis that taking other people's stuff just isn't going to fly. When he has to leave Dennis with his sister, Liz (Joan Cusack) to attend an important party with his agent and publisher to announce his new book, he comes home too find police cars in his driveway and Dennis gone. Liz is unimaginably distraught over the disappearance on her watch claiming she went to make him hot chocolate and came back to find his bedroom empty. He has left behind, however, a gizmo he built, sort of like the one E.T. assembles to phone home, that when activated spins pictures he's taken of him, David, and projects them onto the ceiling. It's actually a pretty amazing little device for a kid his age to have built. It also gives David a flash that allows him to surmise where Dennis has gone. He runs from the house and leaps into the car of Harlee (Amanda Peet) who has just arrived to see if she can help. The two speed off to the observatory where Dennis was supposedly found in the first place. David sees him up on the ledge of the domed roof and immediately takes to the stairs to rescue his adoptive son. Once up on the ledge, he engages Dennis in a conversation that convinces him of his love for the boy, and sadly seals the notion that no Martians or other people, for that matter, are coming to get him. Fortunately, "there's no one on this planet that loves Dennis more" than Dave does. There's much crying and hugging. It's pretty clear that he's going to have a mom soon too, as Liz and David have been growing closer. Meanwhile, the film ends with David's publisher reading David's new book, not the one she wanted, the one he wrote about a guy who adopts a little kid who thinks he's a Martian and how they come to love each other as father and son. She's in tears, clearly, despite her protests, she loves the book.

Is he or isn't Dennis an alien?
Well, the jury could surely still be out. He does do some freaky things like seemingly change all the traffic lights down the road to green using a Martian wish as he calls them. He also does seem to have an uncanny ability to taste the colors of M&Ms. Are there perfectly logical explanations for these things? Sure, the traffic signals might have just been resynchronized after months or years of neglect by city traffic engineers. And, as for the M&Ms, well, the odds of guessing correctly start at around 1 in 5 to start, and logically, a person conducting this test would not feed you 5 of the same color in a row, though that's what I would have done. So, the odds go up each time that you'll be correct with fewer colors left. And, the one that Dennis gets wrong, he gets out of by saying he "cannot taste blue". Meanwhile, there could actually be people, earthlings even, who can do both of these things, change traffic signals and taste colors. While science has long forced we humble human beings that we have but five senses: taste, touch, smell, sight, hearing, the fact of the matter is that we may have many more than these. Most of us have a sense of time, direction, and can detect temperatures. All of the special powers we associate with super heroes could be rooted in some truth. In which case, this would simply make Dennis a very gifted child, but not a Martian. The film tends to leave you with the feeling that he is not a Martian, but it leaves a tiny bit of doubt that makes it fun to speculate. Thank goodness the film doesn't end like K-Pax where Kevin Spacey's character really does disappear at the end leaving no resolution as to whether he was or was not an alien.