The bone-headed, faux-street smart posture of David Ayer’s Helder is just one of the elements thrown into the overcooked stew that is Netflix’s Project power, a superhero movie that is also an anti-drug fable and mixes a father-daughter story with a bit of insensitivity comment on the history of the U.S. government’s medical experiments on Black people. You have you X-Men references, dyn Captain America riffs, dyn Midnight Special parallels, and elements comparable to last year’s unreleased festival title Synchronous. And the film does it all, while the viewer pummels with an overwhelming mix of hip-hop musical cues, graffiti-covered walls, and in-your-face camera work in an attempt to convince viewers that this is a film that belongs with the energy of the streets. (Note to filmmakers: The harder you try, the less successful you will be.)
No matter what the hell Project power at any given moment, Jamie Foxx as Art, a former soldier subject to experiments by government during his time in the service. Art is on a mission to rescue his daughter Tracy (Kyanna Simone Simpson) from a top-secret facility floating on the Mississippi River, where evil doctors use their hereditary superpowers to do … eat related to a new drug just hit the streets of New Orleans. The drug, a glowing capsule that you have to activate by turning it between your teeth, gives anyone who takes it super powers, but only for five minutes. The thing is, you do not know what your particular superpower will be until you take the pill. It could be fire, it could be ice, it could be super strong as super speed as the ability to slow down time in a la Neo The Matrix. There is also an unintentional chance that you will explode seconds after taking, which leads to one moment worthwhile.
The superiority of roulette is also an easy metaphor for the character arc of cynical high school teacher Robin (Dominique Fishback), an aspiring rapper who is trying to figure out their place in the world. Robin sells the super-drug to raise money for her mother’s medical bills, an activity that led to her awkward, mentor-ish relationship with Frank (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), a police detective who to the drugs is hooked. Frank tells himself that it’s a kind of “fighting fire with fire”. (It’s really more than ‘controlling fire with bulletproof skin,’ but whatever.) Frank tries to give Robin life advice, but realizing that he’s also buying drugs from a teenage girl, she gets his wisdom with righteous skepticism. He’s handy to have, though, when Art shrinks into town with a vendetta, kidnapping Robin and forcing her to take him to the source of the drug.
The violence where Art initially interrogates Robin is unsettling, but the rest of it Project power fails to maintain even a remarkable level of sadism. The color scheme is bold and the soundtrack is loud, but the plot is loose and confusing – which is fine, because it’s secondary to the lighting and camera work anyway. The CGI is unremarkable, and the screenplay is full of dope monologues about “good guys” and “bad guys” and “shov”[ing]”Things” up from your mom [EXPLOSION]. One welcome element in all this hyperstylization is in the casting of the film, however, which includes young women with body types and skin tones that are underrepresented in media in general. And when Robin and Tracy finally get together at the end of the movie, it’s refreshing to see two Black girls together to save the day. Foxx and Fishback prove themselves, moreover, true professionals with their dedicated performances, which make their scenes together, if not touching, at least derived.
However, they do not save the film. Directors Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman got their start with the documentary Catfish back in 2010, and have since moved into genre filmmaking (Paranormal activity 4, Viral) with mediocre results. Project power is indistinguishable, a mistreatment of familiar tropes presented with much panache but not much imagination. If nothing else, it’s another step up the ladder for the talented Fishback, who also has a role in the upcoming Fred Hampton movie Judas And The Black Messiah. You might spend a few hours with this movie in the background, but do not expect much to stay with you – except for the monologue with Henrietta Lacks, who is jealous of the jaw. You may have to pop a pill to forget that.
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