'Project Power' review: Jamie Foxx stars in entertaining Netflix thriller

WHAT IT'S ABOUT Jamie Foxx, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Dominique Fishback star in this action-thriller set in New Orleans and centered on the illicit distribution of a pill called Power that grants anyone taking it an unpredictable superpower for five minutes with some noteworthy side effects. You might become bulletproof, or transform into a bulging, Hulk-like monster, or spontaneously combust if the pill doesn't agree with you.

Foxx plays Art Reilly, nicknamed The Major, an original Power test subject stalking through this underworld to rescue his daughter from the clutches of the defense contractor overseeing the distribution of the drug in New Orleans. Gordon-Levitt is the cop Frank Shaver, running around in a Saints jersey on a mission to protect the city.

Fishback ("The Deuce") plays Robin, a young Power dealer who teams up with her A-list co-stars to bring down the drug ring. "Project Power" is directed by Ariel Schulman and Henry Joost, who are best known for the "Catfish" documentary and TV series.

MY SAY "Project Power" offers a textbook case of a premise with great potential being wasted by plotting and directorial efforts that ultimately do not do it justice.

There's a lot to unpack in the ways the directors and screenwriter Mattson Tomlin combine superhero conventions with those of a revenge picture and a drug movie, while throwing in some digs at faceless corporate manipulation.

Plus, there are real attempts made to root the picture in a recognizable New Orleans, contextualized by references to Hurricane Katrina and the sense of a population being targeted once again by an out-of-control force.

It's easy to embrace an original screenplay that attempts to construct its own universe incorporating all these discordant touches, because that's such a rare phenomenon in an era where many movies seem to fit neatly into one box or another.

"Project Power" shares attributes with everything from Marvel movies to "Limitless" and "The Manchurian Candidate," without ever seeming like a rip-off.

But after establishing the ground rules and generating a genuine sense of mystery, the picture settles into familiar routines.

The filmmakers rely too heavily on flashy action sequences — they are enraptured by the sight of their stars chasing, beating and shooting power-possessed bad guys, while the camera flips and spins and performs other distracting maneuvers.

Whenever the picture builds up a degree of intrigue, such as a scene featuring an illicit Power pill demonstration in a speak-easy located inside a check cashing business, the defaulting to action tropes undercuts things.

The scope and impact of the Power program is barely explored. The pill does not make anything particularly interesting happen on-screen — the superpowers are mostly excuses to show off some run-of-the-mill special effects, and the evolutionary ramifications are largely left unaddressed. 

There's too much going on here to be condensed to a simple vengeance plot, but when all of the commotion is stripped down to its essence, that's about all "Project Power" has to offer.

Of course, there's plenty of dramatic value in a revenge story anchored by the Oscar winning Foxx and supported by Gordon-Levitt in full-on earnest action star mode, while Fishback exudes quiet charisma as Robin, who also happens to be an aspiring rapper.

It's just that this is dark and weird material that's rendered without enough regard for that potential.

BOTTOM LINE "Project Power" is entertaining and ambitious, constructing an original universe with aplomb, but it defaults to genre conventions too often.