An intriguing set-up, even if the pancake makeup on Powder (Sean Patrick Flanery) makes him look less like an albino than like a mime. But then the movie takes the first of many wrong steps, by sending him immediately to a reform school. Why? What has he done? Of course we get predictable scenes involving the school bullies, but after Powder performs a neat trick (magnetizing all the spoons in the dining room and creating a pyramid while mashed potatoes are still dripping from them), you'd think the bullies would take heed. Not a chance.
Everyone in this movie seems a little slow to catch on that Powder is really special. There is, for example, Duncan (Brandon Smith), the intolerant local deputy sheriff, a redneck who likes to shoot deer. The deer hardly feel a thing, he explains, but then Powder acts as a conduit to carry the deer's fear and suffering into the deputy, who is so transformed that he sells his gun collection - yet still plays the heavy, making things tough on Powder. To quote "Citizen Kane," there are some people who need more than one lesson.
Two good people sympathize with Powder: Jessie (Mary Steenburgen), the head of the school, and Ripley (Jeff Goldblum), the science teacher, popping up with his quixotic insights like a clever jack-in-the-box. Powder has some sort of strange relationship with electricity, which causes him to draw down lightning and interact with classroom experiments, but the movie uses this only as the occasion for special effects without payoffs. ("You know why there isn't a hair on him?" Goldblum asks. "Because he IS electrolysis.") Meanwhile, Powder comes across as a cross between Cliff Robertson's "Charly," the Elephant Man, Mr. Spock, E.T. and Jesus. He is wise beyond his years, has great compassion and insight, suffers much, and attracts intolerance and meanness even better than lightning. He is also very smart.
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