Point B (DVD)

Using the Internet and a webcam, two young men apologize to the world for releasing the results of an experiment and for any damage this may have caused. Several weeks earlier, Mark and Alan, two young students in the physics department at an unnamed university, arrive late for a presentation. Another student, Chad, has set up this meeting and is furious with his colleagues for their tardiness. Inside, the young men are greeted by two impatient professors and Katie, a young woman for whom Mark has romantic feelings. These three people listen to Mark and Alan's pitch, a request for additional funding for a clean energy reactor they have been building in their basement. The presentation does not go well; Mark has asked the school to fund his other projects before, and none of them were successful. To make matters worse, Alan insults one of the professors. As the boys pack up their presentation, Katie approaches Mark, reminding him that maybe certain others in his circle have been holding him back. Mark fumbles with his words. As she leaves, Chad approaches the stage and angrily informs them that he will not be setting up any other meetings in the future. The boys return to Mark's house, and to their basement reactor: a barely held together hodgepodge of illegally purchased components. Mark breaks the news to the other students involved in the project; Jason, an iconic stoner with a knack for electrical engineering, and Andrew, whose primary job seems to be cleaning up the lab. Mark is angry with Alan for blowing the presentation with his sarcasm. Alan replies with a reminder that he has paid for the construction of the machine with money he received from his wealthy family. Their argument ends with Mark screaming at Alan while instructing the other two students to shut down the machine. Mark storms off to his bedroom while the others leave. Mark returns to the basement with the intent to destroy the machine. He notices a mouse running around, drawn to the basement by food wrappers strewn around the basement. While Mark chases the mouse onto the main portion of the reactor, the machine roars to life and vaporizes him...only for him to reappear in the woods nearby, smoking and retching, but alive. After a repeat attempt confirms what Mark suspected to a horrified Alan, the two of them bring in Chad, Andrew and Jason to share their remarkable secret: the machine is not a clean energy reactor at all but is in fact a crude teleportation device. Everyone reacts differently to this revelation. Mark wants to improve the design before releasing the blueprints. Alan doesn't want to stand anywhere near the device. Jason is intrigued. Chad reminds Alan of his financial commitment to the device and tells him that he could make his money back if the blueprints are sold to the right people. A few days pass. Mark grows increasingly frustrated by his inability to fix the bugs in the device but uses his newfound confidence to ask Katie out on a date. Jason abuses his access to the device, teleporting all over town while drastically increasing his intake of narcotics. Alan finally relents and answers one of Chad's phone calls, leading him to meet with Robinson, a slick corporate representative interested in the device. Alan leaves the meeting intrigued by Robinson's interest but furious with Chad for revealing their secret to someone else. Mark and Katie's date goes fairly well. He tells her to meet him on top of a local mountain for a surprise. Upon her arrival at this location, the "surprise" turns out to be Mark's sudden, violent arrival by teleportation. Katie does not react as expected and runs screaming into the night. Mark returns home and talks to Andrew, who reveals that Jason's constant use of the machine has damaged his brain chemistry, and as a result he must maintain his intake of drugs to stay alive. Mark runs downstairs to confront Jason, who despite his chemically altered state is insistent that he has finally fixed the bugs in the machine. Andrew volunteers for the first attempt and vanishes. The boys, Alan now included, spend the remainder of the evening in a vain attempt to locate him. Alan arrives at his expensive home to find Robinson and two of his goons waiting for him. Alan is taken aback but immediately stunned into silence by Robinson's official offer on the device, which goes unseen but is substantial. Alan brings to offer to Mark, who has been growing increasingly deranged by Andrew's disappearance. Mark responds poorly to Alan's suggestion that they just sell the machine, and an argument develops that ends with Mark shoved to the ground and Alan leaving, furious. After a few days of fuming, Alan forces Chad to bring him to Robinson. Chad reluctantly does so, and the two students barge in on a meeting at Robinson's office. He is not pleased. Alan confesses that, while he is angry with his best friend, he could not possibly betray him by selling the device. Robinson insists that he'll have it, either way. As the boys leave the office, they are thrown into a van driven by Robinson's goons. Mark and Jason continue their work on the device, which is now arranged differently. Robinson and his goons arrive at the house with guns in hand and the two badly beaten students in tow. Robinson demands the blueprints. Mark appears to acquiesce but - with Alan and Jason's help -- tricks Robinson and his cohorts into the machine and teleports them away, while also releasing the blueprints onto the Internet. Robinson, his two goons and Chad arrive on a deserted island, where Andrew is revealed to have been stranded all along. The release of the blueprints allows anyone in the world to build their own device. This obviously leads to chaos and confusion. Alan and Mark use their webcam to record an apology for what they've done.

• science fiction