Project Power Review: 6 Ups & 4 Downs

Netflix delivers a satisfying - if flawed - superhero romp.

By Jack Pooley /

Netflix

Mere weeks after The Old Guard released and immediately became one of Netflix's most successful original movies ever, the streaming giant returns with another stab at the genre, albeit one with a more modest canvas - and sensibly so.

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Project Power, from filmmaking team Ariel Schulman and Henry Joost (Catfish), chronicles a drug epidemic on the streets of New Orleans, as a new designer pill called Power grants its users five minutes of a superpower.

These abilities can range from super-strength to invisibility, armoured skin, flame or ice powers, and so on, but the catch is that you don't know which power you're getting before you take the pill for the first time. Also, there's the possibility it will simply cause instant death.

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In order to locate those manufacturing the drug, cop Frank (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is forced to team up with both teenage dealer Robin (Dominique Fishback) and a vengeful father, Art (Jamie Foxx), as they fight to take Power off the streets.

While Schulman and Joost's film isn't beyond indulging in a few genre cliches, for the most part it delivers an imaginative and slickly crafted riff on typical superhero fare...

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