POSSIBLE SPOILERS
THE POWER is a sci-fi mystery thriller that begins brightly, but quickly gets bogged down in a rather lengthy (and ordinary) man-on-the-run segment that seems to serve very little purpose other than to pad out the movie's running time.
George Hamilton is a little too pretty to be completely believable as the head of a high-powered scientific unit investigating pain thresholds and human endurance in space, but tries hard and certainly doesn't embarrass himself. One colleague in the unit (Arthur O'Connell, overacting wildly) discloses at a meeting that one of their number has an IQ that goes way off the scale, thereby possessing powers that make he or she capable of controlling peoples minds. Then, the members of the unit begin to be killed off
At times the movie seems to be a precursor of David Cronenberg's SCANNERS (1981), even featuring a similar duel of minds' at one point. Some of its plot twists and ideas also put me in mind of something Stephen King might write (something like FIRESTARTER, perhaps). In fact, Aldo Ray, in a small part, could have stepped right out of the pages of a King novel.
The plot does confuse at times, and there are some inconsistencies that niggle; for example, where did George Hamilton get the gun he used on Aldo Ray, and why didn't he pull it on him when he was being driven out to the desert to die? Other than that, THE POWER is a reasonable enough time-passer that will leave very little impression within a week after viewing.
THE POWER is a sci-fi mystery thriller that begins brightly, but quickly gets bogged down in a rather lengthy (and ordinary) man-on-the-run segment that seems to serve very little purpose other than to pad out the movie's running time.
George Hamilton is a little too pretty to be completely believable as the head of a high-powered scientific unit investigating pain thresholds and human endurance in space, but tries hard and certainly doesn't embarrass himself. One colleague in the unit (Arthur O'Connell, overacting wildly) discloses at a meeting that one of their number has an IQ that goes way off the scale, thereby possessing powers that make he or she capable of controlling peoples minds. Then, the members of the unit begin to be killed off
At times the movie seems to be a precursor of David Cronenberg's SCANNERS (1981), even featuring a similar duel of minds' at one point. Some of its plot twists and ideas also put me in mind of something Stephen King might write (something like FIRESTARTER, perhaps). In fact, Aldo Ray, in a small part, could have stepped right out of the pages of a King novel.
The plot does confuse at times, and there are some inconsistencies that niggle; for example, where did George Hamilton get the gun he used on Aldo Ray, and why didn't he pull it on him when he was being driven out to the desert to die? Other than that, THE POWER is a reasonable enough time-passer that will leave very little impression within a week after viewing.