Forgettability is the superpower of Netflix's new Jamie Foxx vehicle Project Power
Film Reviews moviereview
The bone-headed, faux-street smart posturing of David Ayer’s Bright is just one of the elements thrown into the overcooked stew that is Netflix’s Project Power, a superhero movie that’s also an anti-drug fable and a father-daughter story mixed with a little bit of insensitively deployed commentary on the American government’s history of medical experimentation on Black people. You’ve got your X-Men references, your Captain America riffs, your Midnight Special parallels, and elements that are similar to last year’s as-yet-unreleased festival title Synchronic. And the film does it all while pummeling the viewer with an overwhelming blend of hip-hop musical cues, graffiti-covered walls, and in-your-face camerawork in an attempt to convince viewers that this is a movie that hums with the energy of the streets. (Note to filmmakers: The harder you try at this, the less you succeed.)
Regardless of whatever the hell is going on with Project Power at any particular moment, Jamie Foxx stars as Art, an ex-soldier subjected to government experimentation during his time in the service. Art is on a mission to rescue his daughter Tracy (Kyanna Simone Simpson) from a top-secret facility floating on the Mississippi River, where evil doctors are using her inherited superpowers to do… something related to a new drug that’s just hit the streets of New Orleans. The drug, a glowing capsule which you have to activate by twisting it between your teeth, gives anyone who takes it superpowers, but only for five minutes. The thing is, you don’t know what your particular superpower will be until you take the pill. It could be fire, it could be ice, it could be super-strength or super-speed or the ability to slow down time a lá Neo in The Matrix. There’s also a not-insignificant chance that you’ll explode seconds after taking it, which leads to one snort-worthy moment.
The superpower roulette is also a convenient metaphor for the character arc of cynical high schooler Robin (Dominique Fishback), an aspiring rapper who’s trying to figure out her place in the world. Robin sells the super-drug to raise money for her mom’s medical bills, an activity that’s led to her awkward, mentor-ish relationship with Frank (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), a police detective hooked on the drug. Frank tells himself that it’s a “fighting fire with fire” sort of thing. (It’s really more like “fighting fire with bulletproof skin,” but whatever.) Frank tries to give Robin life advice, but considering he’s also buying drugs from a teenage girl, she receives his wisdom with warranted skepticism. He is useful to have around, though, when Art comes crashing into town with a vendetta, kidnapping Robin and forcing her to take him to the source of the drug.
The violence with which Art initially interrogates Robin is unsettling, but the remainder of Project Power fails to maintain even a notable level of sadism. The color scheme is bold and the soundtrack loud, but the plot is loose and confused—which is fine, because it’s secondary to the lighting and camerawork, anyway. The CGI is unremarkable, and the screenplay full of dopey one-liners about “good guys” and “bad guys” and “shov[ing]” things “up your motherfucking [EXPLOSION].” One welcome element in all this hyper-stylization is in the film’s casting, however, which includes young women with body types and skin tones that are underrepresented in media in general. And when Robin and Tracy finally meet towards the end of the film, it’s refreshing to see two Black girls teaming up to save the day. Foxx and Fishback additionally prove themselves true professionals with their committed performances, which made their scenes together, if not touching, at least diverting.
They don’t quite save the movie, however. Directors Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman got their start with the documentary Catfish back in 2010, and have since moved into genre filmmaking (Paranormal Activity 4, Viral) with mediocre results. Project Power is similarly undistinguished, a mishmash of familiar tropes presented with a lot of panache but not a lot of imagination. If nothing else, it’s another step on the ladder for the talented Fishback, who also has a role in the upcoming Fred Hampton movie Judas And The Black Messiah. You might as well spend a couple hours with this film on in the background, but don’t expect much about it to stick with you—except for the jaw-dropping Henrietta Lacks monologue. You may need to pop a pill to forget that.
41 Comments
But shoving things up my motherfucking [EXPLOSION] is the only thing I’m good at!
You’re selling yourself short. Remember those motherfucking [SNAKES] on that motherfucking [PLANE]?
This movies’s got Jamie Foxx and Joseph Gordon-Levitt in it so I’m in. I’m still not sure why I pick certain actors and watch all of their films, yet here we are. I even own Don Jon, a movie so bad that it’s considered a war crime in 13 countries. The movie does kind of make up for itself when an unbelievably hot Scarlett Johansson does some grinding in front of Levitt’s doorway. This scene is “OMG” hot, and is probably sexier than anything skinemax has put out. It also has Tony Danza in it which, and I think we can all agree, all movies should have more of.Jamie Foxx has actually had a part in a ton of fantastic or memorable films. Collateral, boom. A movie so good it should allow Tom Cruise a free pass on committing 5 actual murders. Stealth. A movie so bad that Jamie Foxx kills himself to get out of it. Any Given Sunday. A criminally underrated film, and the end of a run of films by Oliver Stone that is probably one of the best there ever was. Seriously, through the 80s and 90s, Oliver Stone was on fire. Platoon, Born of the 4th of July, Wall Street, Heaven & Earth, Talk Radio, Natural Born Killers, The Doors, JFK; Oliver Stone straight killed it over this time period. And Any Given Sunday is probably an appropriate film to close out the millennium.Jarhead. Another extremely underrated film. A “war film” that has no war, yet the horrors are still there.The Great White Hype. Still driving a merlot brougham. A crazy funny film.And we also got Ali, Ray, Django, Baby Driver, Held up, Horrible Bosses and Bait.Anyway, why are you still here? Go watch this movie already.
Oh geez I forgot about Don Jon and I saw that one in the theater. You’re right about Danza!
Jarhead is one of the only successful anti-war military films I’ve ever seen. Superb.
Cgo, you must’ve been banned at Jezebel because your comments are never visible. Consequently your TomatoFace alerts at Jez are going unseen. Readers depend on them. Could you make a fresh account for Jez?
Check out Full Metal Jacket, Dr Strangelove, Paths of Glory, The Rack, Deer Hunter, Bridge Over The River Kwai, MASH, Apocalypse Now, Platoon, Patton, Hell is For Heroes, A Bridge Too Far, Casualties of War, Red Badge of Courage, The Battle of Algiers
JLG seems to exclusively pick bad movies when the director isn’t actively courting him for the project (Brick, Inception, etc). Jamie Foxx meanwhile is phenomenal in nearly everything he does; he’s BY FAR the best part of the second Andrew Garfield Spider Man movie
I completely agree with Jamie Foxx being the best part of ASM2. The whole campiness of his Max Dillon character pre-accident would’ve been welcome in a Raimi Spider-Man film.
I have a theory that all the bad flicks JGL does are because his friends are involved with directing or producing them and he’s such a nice guy that he just can’t say no to his friends no matter how bad the script is.
I’d buy into this more if there weren’t so. damn. many. of them. I like that he follows his muse and does projects that interest him, but at some point you need to take some career advice
I say this as a huge fan of Edgar Wright, but Foxx is the only redeemable thing about Baby Driver.
This is an insane take that I can in no way endorse. Listen, Ansel Elgort might be a black hole of charisma onscreen, but the dialogue is tight, the musical touches are extremely well thought out, and the chase scenes are impeccable
You’re underestimating Elgort’s gravitational pull by several orders of magnitude.
Nah. He’s monotone, disinterested, and boring.
I say this as a huge fan of Edgar Wright, but Foxx is the only redeemable thing about Baby Driver.Blasphemy! Ansel Elgort & Lily James are amazing! The music, srty & direction and incredible. Jon Hamm & Eiza Gonzalez also have great roles.
The Jarhead sequels are the only movie sequels that match the Starship Troopers sequels in just how badly they missed the point of the first one.
Christ, don’t bring up the sequels. Like starship troopers, it was like somebody said, what if we remade this movie, but badly, and missing the point entirely. And with more guns.They then snorted 12 lines of coke and went about their day.
Is Danza’s character in Don Jon named Tony?
Its been a while since I tried Any Given Sunday but all I can really remember was a lot of fast cuts, jitter cam, and Pachino hamming out.
The premise is just so bad to start out with. Five minutes of super powers? Five? And you might explode? wtf?
Plus it’s apparently addictive! Where do I sign up?
Yeah I can get if the pill either gives you super powers permanently or you die, that might be a fair trade, but 5 minutes? Unless the power you get is time travel you got ripped off.
People do heroin, and that doesn’t even give you a super power.
Yep, getting high is a much better motivator than getting 5 minutes worth of a super power.
a top-secret facility floating on the Mississippi RiverWait. What?
Well, where else are you going to put a laboratory with volatile chemicals?
The bad guys use a container ship for their lab and fab for testing the drug. They sail from port to port demonstrating the drug to “investors”. They need money to perfect it (see: you might explode, only lasts five minutes).The reviewer said “on the Mississippi” because the Mississippi flows through New Orleans. The shots of the ship leaving are actually on a dead-straight canal but I don’t know which of the two big ones it was.
Let’s be honest here. Netflix may have a large audience and a lot of money, but their movies are no different in quality than the Straight-To-Video catalog that’s existed for many years. I can’t wait for theaters to open up because OTT films are total waste.
yeah, I watched this movie last night. It seemed exactly like a straight to video movie lol. How did Jamie Fox get conned into doing it?
Haha..totally agree. Their biggest achievement (besides the occasional really good series, I admit) is the utter crap they put out that can get millions of eyeballs that would be complete dog meat if a regular studio had to release it in theaters.
So I finished watching the movie. And I have to personally feel it was waaaay better than what I’ve seen in reviews from both critics and commentators. I found it to be a fun movie that can stand on its own but could also continue as a franschise of films.The premise itself works for me for a couple of reasons. The concept has been used before lightly in games, shows, and anime. So it wasn’t original for me but it was fleshed out well enough that allows it to have the potential to go into many directions. They could decide to make sequels/spin offs or even a series or both or all of the above. Another reason the concept worked for me, because they knew they were on a budget. Similar to the movie Code 8, they picked their moments on when using that budget into the concept of drug fueled powers. And I felt they used it well. Was every shot perfect? Of course not. But I didn’t roll my eyes in what I saw. Whenever I was left with that feeling of wanting to see more with those powers or action, I remembered that they do have a budget. They don’t want to blow their entire production on one scene and let the rest either be underwhelming or just lame. They need it for the rest of the film. So I was satisfied for the limited amount of use they did with powers and how they creatively used them while avoiding of writing themselves in a corner. Now some critics didn’t like this about the movie, but I was glad they didn’t give really any in depth commentary or too on the nose messages when it came to race, discrimination, government against the lower class people. I mean because of 2020, I read reminders of that about every day. It’s good to have an escape. They touched upon that lightly but I got the kind of movie that they advertised. A movie about people that can get super powers through a pill. They weren’t looking to make Superhero Training Day.The main cast did a fine job with what they had. They’re the type of characters that are a dime a dozen. Nothing I haven’t seen before, but they made me enjoy the performances they gave. Again with timing and budget being limited it made it easier for me to forgive how little screen time Foxx and JGL didn’t share together. The young actress playing Robin didn’t annoy me at all, and she played off well against Jamie Foxx. That being said, this movie does have it flaws. Like Disney Marvel movies, the main villain and other lower antagonists are either too generic or just underwhelming. The scenario that sets up the final scenes for the climax of the film is very cheesy. However it’s no more cheesier than I’ve seen in comics or video games. Even with the main villains dialogue. Some minor characters come and go too quickly that I really only care about the main three. Also even though they all have good chemistry with each other, they usually spend most of the time apart with other characters that I don’t care for. For any other flaws included, I feel the good outweighs the bad. They knew they only had the time and money to make a movie with this cast instead of a series. And as a movie by itself, it’s enough. It ends without any cliffhangers. It has a beginning, middle, and end and can stand on its own should they not pursue sequels. However they did leave enough openings to continue should they wish. The kind of openings that could continue with storylines with or without the original cast. All in all, this is pretty fast paced movie worth watching once.
Damn, Joseph Gordon-Levitt needs to fire his agent.
I gotta say, I really enjoyed it. Yeah, it’s ridiculous as hell, but it was the right kind of ridiculous, at least for me.I especially loved how each power had its own consequence and not just the the risk factors of the time limit and random power.
They did all the popular super-powers and showed how they were all super-limited: – Invisible Man – more like rapid-camouflage and you can see whatever he’s carrying (“Stop those bags!”) Not resistant to a die-pack exploding in his face.Bulletproof Man – basically just a really good ballistics vest, you still get bruised and knocked out etc. Gordon-Levitt does most of the film with one eye full of blood from being shot in the temple. (On the temple?) Flame Guy – scars his skin every time he lights up, can be “put out” with usual methods (smother, drench in water) and takes a second or two to light back up. Not bulletproof.Ms Freeze / Ice Princess / Elsa / etc – Yeah, freezing kills you, duh.Hulk – think about what your skin looks like if you lose a massive amount of weight really quickly. Can shrug off gunshots but being caught in a massive gas explosion? Not so much. I felt smart because I guessed this character’s power based on the wattles of skin around his neck.Mr Incredible – just gives you weird advantages in hand-to-hand combat since your bones can’t be broken. Not resistant to being squashed in a hydraulically-actuated door. Superstrong Guy – yeah super-strong but not fast or resistant to a shotgun blast straight to the chest.Wolverine – seems to heal fast, very dangerous, but not resistant to a wrecking ball to the chest or having his spinal cord severed.The Flash – Interestingly considered the most powerful because they apply the real shockwave science of what happens if you move something through air at multiple times the speed of sound – he’s basically “expanding waves of deadly superheated force guy”. Oh and using his power kills him.
This wasn’t that bad. Interesting premise, and good visual effects. There are many straight to streaming movies this past seven months that are utter garbage compared to this.
This was a lot more interesting when it was a comic book called Strikeforce Morituri
And the film does it all while pummeling the viewer with an overwhelming blend of hip-hop musical cues, graffiti-covered walls, and in-your-face camerawork in an attempt to convince viewers that this is a movie that hums with the energy of the streets. (Note to filmmakers: The harder you try at this, the less you succeed.)No, this film was made by somebody who thinks New Orleans is “under shot” and even though they went there for financial reasons, realised it made way more sense as a setting. Apparently the original script had it set in Portland but the filmmakers scouted it and “were not inspired”. LOL.This is a movie set entirely in New Orleans and mostly at night, that doesn’t have a single shot of Mardi Gras, the touristy parts of Bourbon St, that fucking moss (the moss might have been in a couple of “leaving town” shots, but it wasn’t a focus), or a character who thinks the powers come from “Voodoo”. What is does have is the thing New Orleans almost never gets in movies – an aerial establishing long-shot of the high rise making it look like any other medium-sized US city.Oh, and the tenement block which the reviewer dismisses as “graffiti-covered walls” is ExhibitBe:Saturday (Nov. 15) from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. is your only chance to visit “ExhibitBE,” a five-story, collaborative graffiti environment that has sprung up in an unoccupied apartment complex at 3010 Sandra Drive, just off of General De Gaulle Boulevard in Algiers.“ExhibitBE” frontman Brandan Odums calls it “the largest street art exhibit in the American south.”https://www.nola.com/entertainment_life/arts/article_6ec8d7f8-0501-5d15-98ee-514689cf8340.htmlThis film seems to me to be carefully constructed to have “token white” characters. Gordon-Levitt’s role is what the Black-guy-who-doesn’t-die normally gets. He’s useful, sure, but still has to ultimately be rescued by the Black Saviour, and the Precocious Black Kid who saves the Pure and Virginal Black Girl.Note that all I’ve done there is change the word “white” to “Black” and that’s how this film works.Is is brilliant? Hell no. I think it’s pretty self-consciously film-school-grad constructed to have this extra layer. It’s a primarily Black-focused cast having wild SF adventures and the only real stereotypically “Black experience” aspect of the Precocious Black Kid character is that her moms is alive and sick, instead of dead, which is what she would be if the character was white.Written by a white guy and directed by a couple of white guys. Whether you think this is really terrible or maybe a step in the right direction depends on your politics.
I’d say it’s pretty stereotypically black that she’s also significantly overweight, poor, has an absent father, is a drug dealer, is doing poorly in school, and a rapper (which seems to be the only thing she has any interest in). She’s about as stereotypically black as possible.
“…a mishmash of familiar tropes presented with a lot of panache but not a lot of imagination”This sums up the movie, without mentioning the charm. I’d say a solid B.
Movie was ok. Entertained me for a bit and I liked JGL and Foxx’s performances enough. I give it a B—