PowderMost likely written by some kind of nut, the film Powder is indeedstrange. Powder is the story of an albilno completely hairless teenager who hasthe power to use an extraordinary amount of his brain capacity. Powder is thearchetypal outsider.
Edward Lightning Hands might be a more fitting name for allthe overuse of the already worn out Boo Radley-like misfit who is also adespised prophet type theme. Aside from its lack of orignality it is alsotypically hollywood in it’s blatant overuse of moral superlatives. The most advanced intellect in the history of mankind, is how one ofthe films many protagonistic representatives of society describes Powderseidetic memory and off the scale IQ. The writer expects the audience to view whatPowder says with more credibility because he has the use of more of his brainthan they do. This is a very powerful way for the writer to communicate theme,by developing a philosophy in an attempt to affect the audience, and havingpowder embody that philosophy so that people will see him as some sort of rolemodel. In general, this idea could work, but the writer of this particular filmobviuosly missed the boat here.
Instead of the independence imbodied in most people, Powder belives in aunification of all humans, every single one, through some sort of single-consciousness. The idea of using Powder as a role model can work, but theaudience has to view powder as being worthy. Here Powder views people, unwillingto accept the idea of a single-consciousness solely on faith, as closed-minded. This dogmatic type of view nullifies any worth powder might have had as a rolemodel, and it dooms any chance the message of the film, which supposedlypresents a different, better, and higher, view of things, ever had ofinfluencing people. Besides the implied message, the film itself is just plain awful.
Withclich after clich and an abundance of predictable scenes, its a wonder anyonecould think this movie was worth making. A semi-conscious two-year old couldpredict exactly what would happen next, and who would suddenly reappear in thefilm. The whole addition of a love interest was inane and irrelevant to thepoint the writer was trying to get across. The suposedly touching scenes wereobviously predictable, and although some are well acted, they add nothong butanother impractical twist to the storyOne good point about this movie is the addition of Jeff Goldblum asPowder’s science teacher. Whoever typecast Golblum as a nutty scientistpondering technology versus humanity really knew what they were doing, beacauseit works wonderfully. His delivery of lines in the film is impeccable, oftenmagnifying the script to more than it deserves to be.
His talent as an actorshines clear and true in what is possibly the best line of the best line of themovie: you want to know why he doesn’t have a hair on his body, beacause he iselectolysis. . . .
. drink that in. Though powder is interesting and a bit thought provoking it is best usedas an example of what not to see at the theater. It is in the whole a poorlyconsructed and cliche film that ends up with an awkward message. In theory weare to model our lives around what Powder would do, or what he would think aboutwhat we are doing.
Goldblum admits that we live in a dark age of man, where we are doing everythin we can merely so we don’t kill each other. Therefore, weare supposed to live our lives as pwder would have us live them? Yeah right!Music and Movies
