Project Power (2020).
In the world of Project Power, a narcotic has been invented and distributed throughout New Orleans that gives the user 5 minutes of extraordinary powers. Each person has one power that this pill brings forth, based on DNA strands that we share with certain animals (for example, you might get the ability to run as fast as a cheetah, or the ability to blend into your surroundings like a gecko, or you might just…explode?).
Jamie Foxx plays Art, an ex-Delta Force operative insistent on finding out who is distributing the pills, Dominique Fishback plays Robin, a drug dealer who would rather be rapping, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays Frank, a cop who fights fire with fire. It’s directed by Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman, best known for movies like Catfish and some of the Paranormal Activity sequels.
I’ll start with what I liked. I really like the setup here. I think the idea is a cool one and I’d have liked to see it explored over a season of TV instead of in a movie. There are so many great powers that could have come from this and we only got to see a handful of them. The special effects used during the power scenes are really great as well. We see people fully engulfed in fire, changing physical form, and just outright exploding. The effects were great all around. The colors really pop, especially on a great screen. This is one really good looking film. I liked the characters as well. I think that the bond formed between Art and Robin was pretty well done.
Unfortunately the movie suffers from a weak, predictable script. Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s character Frank is almost completely wasted - if he wasn’t in the film, it would really make no difference. In fact, when he is on screen, it’s almost always just an excuse to toss Robin into the bushes so she can take care of some menial task so that she can stay out of danger. You can see the ending coming from a mile away.
Spoilers incoming. If you read on, I’m going to spoil some stuff. You’ve been warned.
There are a lot of small things that don’t make a lot of sense. Let’s take a look at the scene in which the main supplier, played by Olivier Martinez, is giving a demonstration to possible investors. A woman who’s a willing participant walks into a tank and takes one of the pills. Turns out her power is thermoregulation. In real life, thermoregulation is an organisms ability to keep its body temperature at a comfortable level even as the world around it changes temperature. It’s how penguins are able to survive without freezing. Even human organs have a bit of this. In Project Power, however, she starts freezing solid until he turns the heat up in the tank, which isn’t thermoregulation at all. Eventually, the tank stops working, and she freezes solid. It’s a scene that looks beautiful, but doesn’t make a lick of sense. For what it’s worth, I know some people really hated the action scene that takes place during this set piece…I loved it. You see all of the action from inside the tank and I thought that it was a really inventive perspective.
There’s also the scene in which Art, Jamie Foxx’s character, finally unleashes his power - that of the pistol shrimp. In real life, the pistol shrimp can snap it’s large claw so quickly that it evaporates the water around it at temperatures of up to 8000 degrees - literally a small version of the sun. This sounds like a really badass power, but when he uses it, it’s treated as…lasers? Fireballs? Something…that conveniently dodges Robin while murdering all of the undesirables. Oh, and it also kills Art. It made zero sense, but again, it looked cool.
Finally, we get to the very predictable ending. We know Art’s daughter Tracy is a healer (somehow, because what animal can heal other animals?). We know she’s going to heal Art and everything is going to be fine, even though Art probably does deserve to die. So here’s how it should have ended in a way that would have been way less predictable. You have Art die from the pistol shrimp pump. You have Tracy attempt to bring him back to life, but can’t. It’s sad for a minute. Then you have Robin bring Tracy home to live with her. Tracy sees that Robin’s mom has cancer and she cures her. I mean, after all of that exposition with Robin’s mom being sick, how did they not get Tracy there to heal her? This could have added a lot to the film.
I had a decent time watching Project Power. Maybe it’s because I like the players involved or maybe it’s because we didn’t get a super hero blockbuster movie this year, but I had fun with it. It’s not one that I’ll revisit, but if you want something shallow that looks good on screen, you can do worse than Project Power.
