Movie · 2020 · Action, Crime, Science Fiction · 1h 53m · R · English
Curator score: 1.1/10 (210.9K ratings)
What would you risk for five minutes of pure power?
Overview
An ex-soldier, a teen and a cop collide in New Orleans as they hunt for the source behind a dangerous new pill that grants users temporary superpowers.
Ratings
Curator score: 1.1/10
IMDb: 6.0/10
Letterboxd: 2.55/5
Rotten Tomatoes: 61%
Metacritic: 51
TMDB: 6.4/10
Director
Ariel Schulman, Henry Joost
Production
Screen Arcade, Supermarché
Cast
Jamie Foxx, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Dominique Fishback, Rodrigo Santoro, Courtney B. Vance, Amy Landecker, mgk, Tait Fletcher, Allen Maldonado, Andrene Ward-Hammond, Kyanna Simone Simpson, C.J. LeBlanc, CG Lewis, Joseph Poliquin, Jazzy De Lisser, Cory DeMeyers, Casey Neistat, Azhar Khan, Janet Rose Nguyen, Marjorie Parker
Where to watch
Netflix, Netflix Standard with Ads
Curator Review
Verdict
A slick, high-concept action-crime thriller with a fun premise and some strong performances, but it mostly plays like a familiar superhero origin story without enough invention to fully cash in on its idea. Worth it if you want stylish, easygoing spectacle; less so if you’re looking for sharp worldbuilding or a truly memorable sci-fi hook.
Best for
Viewers who like glossy, mid-budget action movies
Fans of superhero-adjacent crime thrillers
People in the mood for a simple, fast-moving streaming watch
Audiences who enjoy New Orleans atmosphere and pulpy genre mashups
Skip if
You want a genuinely original take on superpowers
You’re looking for deep character writing or airtight plotting
You prefer action films with a harder edge or bigger set pieces
You’re tired of generic anti-drug / anti-corporate conspiracy stories
Overview
Project Power has a genuinely good hook: a black-market pill that grants random superpowers for five minutes is the kind of premise that should generate chaos, surprise, and memorable action. The movie does have flashes of that energy, along with a polished look and a cast that knows how to sell the material. Jamie Foxx brings weight, Joseph Gordon-Levitt adds some scrappy charm, and Dominique Fishback gives the film its best sense of urgency and personality.
Worth noting
The problem is that the movie keeps retreating into a very familiar chase-and-conspiracy structure. Instead of fully exploring the weirdness of the power pill, it settles for standard beats, standard villains, and standard emotional turns. The result is competent but rarely exciting, like a better-than-average pilot for a franchise that never quite arrives.
Bottom line
Still, there’s enough craft here to make it an easy recommendation for viewers who want a polished genre piece without much homework. If you go in expecting a clever B-movie with occasional bursts of invention, it can work. If you want the premise to really explode, it mostly just smolders.
Top Letterboxd reviews
demi adejuyigbe · 1123 likes
Cool visuals! Perfect movie to put on in the background while you do something else. Is Casey Neistat contractually obligated to be offered a role in every movie made for Gen Z? Movies should not be allowed to use the line “This isn’t a movie, this is real life.”
Patrick Willems (2.5★) · 622 likes
The message I got from this is that most super powers suck and half of them apparently kill you
Frandi Peralta · 460 likes
Joseph Gordon-levitt is back!!!😁❤️
matt lynch (3★) · 277 likes
Genuinely surprised to find this perfectly adequate for an X-MEN knockoff. Some of the powers were neat, there were occasional bites of visually-inventive action, it's generally pretty, and Foxx is fun to watch. The execution of the subtext about disenfranchised communities being used as guinea pigs is pretty tin-eared, but also it absolutely belongs here, so I'd rather have it than not.
George Clark (2.5★) · 185 likes
2020 Releases Ranked-HERE
Project Power is a 2020 American science fiction/superhero film directed by Ariel Schulman and Henry Joost and stars Jamie Foxx, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Dominique Fishback, Machine Gun Kelly, Rodrigo Santoro and Amy Landecker. The films storyline follows a police officer, former soldier and drug dealer as they team up to stop the distribution of a pill that gives the user superpowers for five minutes.
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