For an action movie about substance abuse, this new Netflix movie is sorely lacking in substance. It has a premise — high-tech pills give users random superpowers for five minutes. It’s got an aggressive visual style, with high-contrast photography, kinetic camera moves and randomly off-kilter compositions. It’s got a couple movie stars: Joseph Gordon-Levitt is Frank, an honest but rule-breaking police detective; Jamie Foxx is Art, a slick avenger — the “bad guy” you know will be teaming up with the “good guy” at the movie’s halfway point.
What Project Power doesn’t have is character development or a plot that raises the stakes beyond saving people (or oneself) from getting slaughtered. Frank is every rogue cop cliché rolled into one and flattened into a thin outline. Art is every antihero whose violence turns out to be in service to justice. As Robin, Frank’s part-time drug-dealing sidekick, Dominique Fishback (HBO‘s “The Deuce”) manages to make an impression despite direction by Ariel Schulman and Henry Joost (Nerve) that barely lets any performer register an emotion before flitting to some new neon-colored image.
The screenplay is essentially an endless chase-and-fight scene with pauses to showcase what the magic pills can do: A human torch! Bulletproof skin! A woman with Elsa’s powers from Frozen! It’s all familiar and jumbled together to no effective purpose. If this is what an artistic superpowers movie looks like, please send me back to the Marvel Cinematic Universe on the next plane out.
Project Power does however get points for showcasing the less touristy sides of New Orleans, and its two leading men retain some magnetism amid the tumult. But those are slim satisfactions. The whole affair is like watching someone play a violent videogame without sharing the controller — you can sort of follow what’s going on, but you’re not involved.
Now streaming on Netflix
Before you comment
The comments section is here to provide a platform for civil dialogue on the issues we face together as a local community. Xpress is committed to offering this platform for all voices, but when the tone of the discussion gets nasty or strays off topic, we believe many people choose not to participate. Xpress editors are determined to moderate comments to ensure a constructive interchange is maintained. All comments judged not to be in keeping with the spirit of civil discourse will be removed and repeat violators will be banned. See here for our terms of service. Thank you for being part of this effort to promote respectful discussion.