Essay/Term paper: Powder

Essay, term paper, research paper:  Culture

Powder


Most likely written by some kind of nut, the film Powder is indeed
strange. Powder is the story of an albilno completely hairless teenager who has
the power to use an extraordinary amount of his brain capacity. Powder is the
archetypal outsider.Edward Lightning Hands might be a more fitting name for all
the overuse of the already worn out "Boo Radley-like misfit who is also a
despised prophet" type theme. Aside from its lack of orignality it is also
typically "hollywood" in it's blatant overuse of moral superlatives.
"The most advanced intellect in the history of mankind," is how one of
the films many protagonistic representatives of society describes Powders
eidetic memory and off the scale IQ.The writer expects the audience to view what
Powder says with more credibility because he has the use of more of his brain
than 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 having
powder embody that philosophy so that people will see him as some sort of role
model. In general, this idea could work, but the writer of this particular film
obviuosly missed the boat here.
Instead of the independence imbodied in most people, Powder belives in a
unification of all humans, every single one, through some sort of single-
consciousness. The idea of using Powder as a role model can work, but the
audience has to view powder as being worthy. Here Powder views people, unwilling
to 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 role
model, and it dooms any chance the message of the film, which supposedly
presents a different, better, and higher, view of things, ever had of
influencing people.
Besides the implied message, the film itself is just plain awful. With
cliché after cliché and an abundance of predictable scenes, its a wonder anyone
could think this movie was worth making. A semi-conscious two-year old could
predict exactly what would happen next, and who would suddenly reappear in the
film. The whole addition of a love interest was inane and irrelevant to the
point the writer was trying to get across. The suposedly touching scenes were
obviously predictable, and although some are well acted, they add nothong but
another impractical twist to the story
One good point about this movie is the addition of Jeff Goldblum as
Powder's science teacher. Whoever typecast Golblum as a nutty scientist
pondering technology versus humanity really knew what they were doing, beacause
it works wonderfully. His delivery of lines in the film is impeccable, often
magnifying the script to more than it deserves to be. His talent as an actor
shines clear and true in what is possibly the best line of the best line of the
movie: "you want to know why he doesn't have a hair on his body, beacause he is
electolysis.....drink that in."
Though powder is interesting and a bit thought provoking it is best used
as an example of what not to see at the theater. It is in the whole a poorly
consructed and cliche film that ends up with an awkward message. In theory we
are to model our lives around what Powder would do, or what he would think about
what 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, we
are supposed to live our lives as pwder would have us live them? Yeah right!