Premise: A father and a cop both try to put a stop to a company that has developed a drug that temporarily gives people superpowers.
Project Power is another movie that's easy to watch. It's not quite pulpy, but it's not far off. It definitely leans on its own ridiculousness. After all, the movie opens with Rodrigo Santoro announcing that they are distributing a drug that gives super powers for exactly five minutes and that they are handing it out to dealers for free. There's no way to make sense of this except by saying it's a movie. It owns that and doesn't run from it.
I'm not sure when Joseph Gordon-Levitt went from "the next big thing" to "actor who jumps at the chance to do voice performances" but here we are. I really feel like they sold him on this role by telling him he can be as Louisiana as he wants in this. I feel like they got Jamie Foxx on board in a similar way. I think there's a lot of Wesley Snipes in Jamie Foxx. One of the moments I remember the most from Passenger 57 is that there's a scene where the movie basically stops for a minute so a woman can comment on how handsome Snipes is. That played to me like it was included for his vanity. It's funny how there's a similar scene here for Jamie Foxx. In other words, the movie bends where needed to what image-conscious Foxx wants. Both JGL and Foxx are really solid in this. They give this movie some clout the way that Logan Marshall-Green couldn't in Upgrade.
Dominique Fishback is good too, but it was really odd to see her in this. I mainly know her from The Deuce, in which she plays a prostitute in a show with a lot of nudity. It's odd to then see her in this as a high school student. It's like she's taking these roles in the wrong order. Once I see someone as a grown-up actor, I can't see them in high school anymore. Like, maybe Zoey Deutch could still pass for a high school student in the right movie. She still looks quite young, but I've seen he as an adult in too many things to not think "she's way too old to be in high school". Or, as a counter-point, take Vanessa Marano (April on Gilmore Girls). At 27 years old, she was a high-schooler in the movie Saving Zoe last year. I didn't really have a problem with that because, even though she's a decade too old, she's been playing teens for the last decade. If she's in a Scorsese movie tomorrow as a mobster's wife, then I would stop buying her as a high-school student in future roles.
Whoa, sorry. I didn't realize I had such a rant in me about that.
Apparently, my big criticism of this movie isn't a unique one. It doesn't do nearly enough with the premise. It's about a drug that makes anyone a superhero or supervillain for 5 minutes and the powers are different for everyone. That's an idea with unlimited potential. Everyone is an X-Man* and we get to see everyone discover their power. I'm incredibly let down that Fishback never takes the pill. This movie could've been completely nuts. Instead, it was just a paint-by-numbers action movie. It had set pieces in all the expected places at the expected intensity. Directors Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman aren’t the most gifted action directors (not yet, at least). The script doesn't help them very much either.
*The singular form of X-Men really doesn’t look right, does it?
It's all open-ended enough though that I'd love to see a sequel. Different stars, directors, or screenplays could do a ton with this basic idea. And, like most Netflix action movies, Project Power is still an easy watch.
Verdict: Weakly Don't Recommend
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