'Project Power' - Movie Review

A minor twist on the superhero genre, done by Netflix with good actors and a passable but not spectacular script.

We're introduced to "Power," a drug in a pill that gives you five minutes of your own superpower. Although it's established early on that some people die almost immediately after they take the pill.

Then we're introduced to our three leads - teenager Robin (Dominique Fishback) who sells Power to make enough money to finance her mother's diabetes operation, police man Frank (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) who's gone renegade and buys Power from Robin so he can match strengths with Powered criminals, and ex-military man Art (Jamie Foxx) whose motives are left mysterious for the longest. He uses Robin to try to find the source of Power in New Orleans (where this is set).

All three of our leads act well. It turns out that Fishback - who's supposed to be 15 or 16 in the movie - was probably 28 when they were shooting, but not knowing that I totally bought her as a teenager. It also makes it less surprising she's a good actress. The what's-it-going-to-be aspect of the super powers was entertaining, although it seemed pretty clear that they were deliberately hiding Art's super power. He knew what it was, but he didn't want to use it and he didn't discuss it, so I was able to guess it would be a big final denouement plot point. And I was right, so they lose points on the writing. Still, ultimately a fun way to spend a couple hours.