Powder (1995)

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

Another movie created from a sure-to-succeed formula. Take a kid who does not fit the mold (albino), make a bunch of idiots dislike him, give him super-powers and an exceptional IQ (though he never displays it), play lots of tear-jerk music, etc., etc. Bingo…a hit! It would have been an even bigger hit if there were shooting, blood, a car chase, pointless sex scenes, big hooters, and an alien. Are moviegoers this simple minded or have movie studios trained us to appreciate slop? I suppose if all one has ever eaten is porridge, a basic burger is wonderful. This movie was not close to being a basic burger. It might be a stale bun. The kid's "super-power" was that he was a semi-telepathic super-magnet. Hope that does not ruin the movie for you. It should not...the movie was a ruin from the get-go. The end was as sappy as the movie, so at least it was consistent. Yuck.

Jeremy 'Powder' Reed (Sean Patrick Flanery) is an albino. His mother died in childbirth. His father disowned him. Sheriff Barnum (Lance Henriksen) investigates a dead elderly man and discovers his grandson Powder hiding in the basement. Powder has never been to school and little contact with the outside world except in books. Social services worker Jessie Caldwell (Mary Steenburgen) places him to all boy's Central home and to the high school of small town Wheaton City. His special powers causes fear, fascination and isolation. Physics teacher Donald Ripley (Jeff Goldblum)'s electricity demonstration gets out of hand. Fellow student Lindsey is fascinated but John Box picks on him.The kid is an albino and everybody acts like they've seen a ghost even before he shows his powers to them. I'm not sure what kind of backwards 'To Kill a Mockingbird' hick town this is suppose to be. I'm willing to buy the teen bullies. However the 'kid' actors are not that compelling. It's as if the casting agent is good at casting adults but has no clue how to get good young actors. Sean Patrick Flanery does his best but his character is emotionally limited. He isn't allowed to be happy. The bullies are trying too hard and the girl doesn't have the charisma. John Box is closer to 30. The movie is trying so hard to be profound that it doesn't ring anywhere close to true. People are too stupid. People are too mean-spirited. The melodrama is too high. The actors sound fake. Powder is basically either going to be a superhero or supervillain. This could be a great comic book origin movie but every character is slightly wrong.

Powder was just a baby when his mom died. While giving birth she was struck by lightning and died on the operating table. The baby survived, but the dad, seeing that the baby is albino (a lack of pigment in hair, eyes and skin tone), he becomes disgusted and leaves the baby with its grandparents. Powder grows up isolated from most human contact; his world is in the classic novels he's memorized over the years. Soon he is found and sent away as a teen to a school for boys. They think he is weird because of his appearance and they constantly make fun of him and bully him. However, he shows a few people in the rural New England town that they shouldn't judge a person by appearance; he shows them the good in his powers and in himself. This film has great soundtrack, an amazing plot and a lesson anyone can carry with them their whole life: don't judge a person by race, gender, color, religion, sexual orientation, ethnicity or morals; judge them based on their actions. The ending of the film was absolutely breathtaking, a beautiful scene. I hope Powder s left alone and never remade with CGI, because its a classic that will be loved among viewers for a long time.

Those you do not like or get the movie or those who feel it's stupid have one thing in common. They never grew up with a disability that made them the perpetual outsider. The one who was jeered at, constantly denigrated, beat up by groups (never just one person). In real life there is no Mary Steenburgen to stand up for them. In most cases the adults and authority figures turn a blind eye and in the worse cases join in.I do know. I grew up as a disabled person. I went through all the bigotry, ignorant taunts and carried the weight of the hate those around me felt for me, for some over which I had no control. Those people in my life and the same type here lack a important trait that makes us human, EMPATHY.