freelife-04743 This is not a quirky drama about a misfit boy with supernatural powers. It's a movie about a boy who is born fully Awakened, Enlightened or Self-Realized, who directly experiences the interwoven oneness of all things (he describes as much several times in the film,) and is unable to assimilate into a world full of beings who instead see themselves as separate and hostile to each other. As such he is similar to so many realized masters of the East - Buddha, Ramana Maharshi, etc. - who were always much more comfortable being alone in a contemplative state than attempting to mix with or teach others. If you watch the film from that perspective, you can see his plight poignantly portrayed, as he tries to relate to others, even teach them a thing or two, when he knows that at any moment he can overpower the whole small-town institutional system that's trying to hold him and help him be "normal." A very selfless act, as is the way he helps a gruff sheriff contact his dying wife, or the way he restarts the heart of an "enemy" schoolmate who humiliates and threatens to kill him. This was Salva's intention, to show how a fully awakened being could show us all the beauty & reality of life, if only we would allow him to mentor us, instead of the other way around. Beautifully acted by all involved. See it and let it touch you deeply.

nlytnd_1 I just randomly thought of this movie again, since I remembered it being one of the most pointless movies I had ever seen.Essentially, if someone's different everyone will unprovokingly F with them and treat them like crap, then they'll be struck by lightning and die. That's the extent of this movies underlying message. None of the people involved in messing with Powder ever really come to any realization, like, maybe we shouldn't be messing with some dude minding his own business over there and others could have realized, maybe we could have learned something from this goth dude with superpowers. Even the one chick who was the nicest to Powder, was still unprovokingly a chaunch to him half the time as well. I would imagine that the story for this movie probably was deep and had a purpose, but anything of meaning/substance was trimmed away and it ended up being a pointless piece of crap.

SnoopyStyle 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.

Casey Dillard This movie holds a very special place in my heart since I was young. Victor Salva, it seems, had at least one good story in him and this, though in some ways sappy, was certainly it. The treatment of the main character makes it hard to watch at times because it can feel very bleak and hopeless, but it is balanced out by the tenderness of the characters who do accept him and offer him hope and kindness. The acting is excellent in this film and the cast is to be commended for not turning the script into something sickly or too predictable. The ending brought me to tears and maybe felt like an easy way out, but it did feel appropriate. All in all, I'd suggest that anyone watch it at least once.