Welcome to this week’s edition of the Nerd Review!  Every week the Nerds give you their take on a different classic from the Nerdosphere.  This week the DPP, Dave and Patrick review Netflix new Sci-Fi action film Project Power

The Flick:  Project Power

What’s it About:  A drug that gives people super powers for exactly five minutes is making its way through the criminal elements of New Orleans.  While the drug creates amazing highs, it also kills the user as often as it grants powers.  A cop trying to protect the city, his young dealer informant and a father searching for his kidnapped daughter are the city’s only hope of stopping the drug at its source.

Metacritic Score: 51

The Nerds’ Take on Project Power:

Patrick:  The basic concept of Project Power is a pretty cool one.  What if there was a drug that could give you super powers, but only for five minutes?  And would you still take that drug knowing there’s a chance the power could consume and kill you?  Unfortunately, Project Power fails to fully realize this concept, or really any of its concepts.

On the streets of New Orleans, a drug is making its way through the city and escalating crime.  The drug gives anyone who takes it fantastic abilities such as invisibility and super strength.  However other simply are consumed by the drug and die on the spot.  Frank is a local cop intent on finding the source and bringing the manufacturers of the drug down, even as he takes the drug to help him fight these new super criminals.  Also seeking the source of the drug is Art, who uses brutal tactics in the hopes of finding his daughter.  You see, she was kidnapped by these manufacturers for an unknown(to the audience anyway) reason.  And then there’s Robin a young dealer/informant who just wants to achieve her dream as rapper.  All three of them team up to take on this shadow organization that will stop at nothing to use New Orleans as its testing ground before selling the pill world wide.

The biggest problem I have with this movie is the feeling it is somehow incomplete.  The movie clocks in at about two hours and I felt like there were just pieces missing everywhere.  For example, for the first half of the movie, your following Rodrigo Santoro’s character Biggie as he distributes the drugs to his dealers and acts as salesman to international buyers.  Yet, for all his bombast and presence in the first half of the film he isn’t reeeeaally the villain here.  It’s really this other person who just kind of…show up.  The whole thing just feels incomplete and unearned, the revelation of who the big player is has no punch.

That also goes for some of the relationships between characters in this movie.  Like Art and Fran, played by Jamie Foxx and Joseph Gordon Levitt respectively, they go from antagonists to each other to best friends after one tense moment in a car.  Art becomes a pseudo father figure to Robin, after basically kidnapping her because…reasons.  It just didn’t dwell and felt like maybe a lot of exposition was left on the cutting room floor.  The action sequences are fun, but nothing particularly stands out as a defining moment that would bring you back.  The acting here is ok, but it really does feel at times these folks are just going through the motions.  This movie had a lot of potential in my opinion, it just didn’t live up to it.

Patrick’s Rating:  2.0/5

DPP: A Netflix Original, Jamie Foxx, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt…how can you go wrong?  Project Power is about a pill that you can take that gives you some kind of special power for five minutes.  Set in New Orleans, police officer Frank Shaver (Levitt) is suspended when he uses a pill to apprehend a suspect during a robbery.  However, he’s given an ultimatum by his captain…find Art (Foxx), aka The Major, who is believed to be the source of the drug, and the suspension will be lifted.  The Major, however, is trying to find the source of the drug himself, known as Biggie, as they have kidnapped his daughter.

So what powers does this pill give you for five minutes?  You don’t know until you take it.  And there’s a chance your body will reject it, and you will explode to your death.  Good luck.  But that’s the least of the issues with this movie.  Two thirds of the way through the movie, Biggie claims that the Power from these pills is derived from the abilities of animals.  Of all the people that we witnessed during the movie taking the pill, we saw a man on fire like the Human Torch, and women described as Elsa from Frozen, and a man who grew into a giant like the Incredible Hulk.  I’m not really sure what animals they represented.  Once Frank finally arrests Art and is taking him in to his captain, Art convinces Frank that his captain is corrupt, Frank agrees to help Art instead of bringing him in.  The problem is that the police have no bearing on the story at all.  They are nowhere to be found in the movie other than the one scene with the captain, and the only office involved in the story is Frank.  Finally, during the finale of the movie, after Art rescues his daughter and they attempt to escape the tanker they are on, the head of Project Power and a group of guards force Art to face them for the final showdown.  Shortly before this, when they had Art captured, the leader stated to just kill Art and take some of his DNA, that’s all they needed.  So why during this showdown did they not just shoot and kill Art when he they clearly did not need him alive?  Instead, he takes a pill, acquiring powers of a pistol shrimp, and annihilates everyone in his path, dying in the process, until his daughter revives him, and they ride off into the sunset.  The story is just so full of holes and trope moments that it took away from what was a great premise.  I loved the idea behind this, I just wish it would have been told better.

DP’s Rating: 1.5/5

Dave: What would you do if you could have super-powers for 5 minutes? At its core, that is the question being asked in the new Netflix film Project Power. Naturally, as we discover, nothing is quite that simple in this film that I felt was, for the most part, good but also, in other ways, quite forgettable.

The general premise of the movie is that individuals have developed a pill known as Power. A user twists the capsule and ingests it giving them super-powers for 5 minutes. There is a catch….and a big one at that. There is no way to predict what kind of powers one will get and, in some instances, the body rejects the powers completely killing the user. Set against the backdrop of New Orleans, the bad guys are using various dealers to get Power to many individuals who do not realize they are being used as test subjects to try and stabilize Power for mass production. One of the dealers, Robin, has a regular buyer who happens to be a NOPD officer, Frank, played very well by Joseph Gordon Levitt. At the other end of the spectrum is Art, played equally well by Jamie Foxx.

As the film progresses, we learn that Art was tested upon by a defense contractor called Teleios and these test results were how Power was created in the first place. Art has a daughter, Tracy, who was born after Art inadvertently created Power. When Tracy exhibits powers without ever having taken the pill, the bad guys realize that there is the potential for powers to be passed down genetically, which opens up a world of possibilities. Tracy gets abducted and Art is on a mission to get her back. It takes a while, but Robin and Frank become his allies and the good guys win out in the end.

It is all good stuff, but not great stuff or even the right stuff. The biggest problem I had with the movie is the lack or originality that we saw with the powers being demonstrated. Nearly every manifestation of super-powers could be viewed as copying another well-established Super-Hero. In the movie, we see quasi-doppelgangers of The Human Torch, Superman, The Hulk, Doomsday, Wolverine, Scarlet Witch and, in the case of Jamie Foxx’s character at the end, a variation of Black Bolt’s power set. Now, to be sure, one could argue that by keeping the powers somewhat relatable, it made it easier for a viewer to gain a measure of familiarity with what was going on. But, to me anyway, this felt like a wasted opportunity to do something original and explore a power set that has either not been done before (easier said than done, I know) or one that has not been done to death (equally difficult). In the end, the movie shines in areas one might not expect. The action sequences are very good and Levitt and Foxx’s performances are top notch. The movie does a good job of drawing you in and caring about the characters involved. Still, I can’t help but feel like this was a missed opportunity to explore some cool new areas of the genre. Is it worth your time? I would say so as it is a fun movie. But if you decide to skip this one, you probably should not lose too much sleep over it.

Dave’s Rating: 3.0 /5

Overall Nerds Rating for Project Power (2020):  2.1/5