Hot off the heels of great new action flicks Extraction and The Old Guard hitting Netflix they are bringing their own new take on the super hero genre to the mix with the latest film Project Power starring Jamie Foxx, Joseph-Gordon Levitt and Dominique Fishback. Could this film bring something new to the superhero genre or will it not have the lasting power?

 

Project Power follows the streets of New Orleans where word begins to spread about a mysterious new pill that unlocks superpowers unique to each user. The catch: You don’t know what will happen until you take it. While some develop bulletproof skin, invisibility, and super strength, others exhibit a deadlier reaction. But when the pill escalates crime within the city to dangerous levels, a local cop teams with a teenage dealer and a former soldier fueled by a secret vendetta to fight power with power and risk taking the pill in order to track down and stop the group responsible for creating it.

 

While this film has a superhero theme at its core it’s not your usual take on the genre. Sure there have been others like this, but this one offers up a new twist on how the powers themselves work. This direction makes for some interesting sequences that really help to elevate this film to something fresh and new. The overall tone of the film plays up more like a gritty crime action thriller that just happens to take place in the world where powers exist.

 

Both Foxx and Levitt are excellent here with not only good performances, but great at pulling off the action. We haven’t gotten to see either of them in a good action role in some time and they both shine. Fishback does a great job as well holding her own with these two acting powerhouses and brings the grounded aspect to the insanity of it all. Between them all they deliver a cast that offer up great chemistry and characters you want to see on screen.

 

I wasn’t sure how much of the actual powers we were going to get throughout but they did not disappoint. I know it shouldn’t at this point, but I am still surprised how well the effects work here. I guess there is a mental thing of thinking if it’s on TV it will be a bit of a lesser budget but that just isn’t the case anymore. This film holds itself up to any other big screen release and further strengthens the ongoing great content of Netflix.

 

Filled with an interesting story, great action and effects I dug this film a lot more than I expected to and was already excited to see it. It is always refreshing to see different takes on the genre and I hope this is not the last we see of these characters or world. Even it is though it was a power worth having for way more than five minutes.