Netflix movies and original series are really hit or miss these days, when they first started producing their own shows and movies almost every single one was fantastic, almost every single one was a Hemlock Grove or Stranger Things level of popularity and success but as time went on the originals got worse and worse and seeing that Netflix made something themselves no longer motivates me to check it out like it used to. That’s not to say that they don’t release some gems from time to time still, The Umbrella Academy was really good and helped to show me that Netflix can still put out a winner when they put in the effort.
Project Power was released on Netflix back on August 14 and it honestly took me a few days to watch it specifically because it was a Netflix original and I haven’t had the best impression with them lately. The series stars Jamie Foxx, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Machine Gun Kelly and relative newcomer Dominique Fishback and centers around a new street drug which can give people superpowers for 5 minutes…The catch? you don’t know what power you get until you take the pill and some will just kill you instantly.
I’ll start with some of the things I enjoyed about the movie, the first being Jamie Foxx’s portrayal as an ex soldier father looking to save his daughter and to find the source of the new street drug and put a stop to it, even if everyone else in the movie was horrible you can always count on Jamie Foxx for a stellar acting job. I also was really excited about the premise and the possibilities of all the different powers I might see throughout the movie, I assumed there would be a lot of pill popping and then sitting on the edge of my seat waiting to see what power they get…but I didn’t get that so much and I’ll get more into that in the next paragraph…I also thought the special effects were done really well, they didn’t look too cheesy and the whole “each power is from an animal” thing was kind of interesting.
Okay so now a few things that bothered me and I’m sure I’m nitpicking but there were some things I just couldn’t bring myself to look past while watching the movie last night…Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s performance was mediocre, it felt like he was trying too hard to be a guy that loves and will do anything for his city, I’m usually a big fan of his work but wasn’t too impressed with it in this movie. Also the show has this awesome premise with these pills that can give you all kinds of cool superpowers and they really don’t play into that as much as they should have…You see maybe 6 or 7 people try the drug through the whole movie and not to mention the powers are supposed to be based in animal’s abilities in nature yet Machine Gun Kelly’s character just sets himself on fire as his power…what animal does that exactly?
Overall it was enjoyable to watch and was a cool idea for a movie but I feel it would have been so much better as a series, they would have been able to flesh out the characters more and explore more of the cool animal based superpowers that way. Dominique Fishback was decent and I’m betting we’ll be seeing her in lots more in the future…I felt like the movie was rushed and didn’t leave me wondering what was going to happen to characters long enough…a dilemma or problem would come up and 5 minutes later it was solved and done with just to move on to the next plot point…Not my favorite Netflix film for sure but certainly worth a watch when you run out of other stuff to watch…I give it a solid 6 out of 10
We may receive commissions when you click through links and make purchases
The Listerzine 
Leave a Reply