Project Power
Netflix | Release Date (Streaming): August 14, 2020 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
51
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 35 Critic Reviews
Positive:
12
Mixed:
20
Negative:
3
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
83
Entertainment WeeklyLeah GreenblattAug 13, 2020
For all the patently corny bits and some 17 attempts at an ending, Power still somehow makes it easy to suspend your disbelief and your imaginary degree in biochemistry, and just let it ride. Read full review
80
The Irish TimesDonald ClarkeAug 13, 2020
It mostly succeeds on old-fashioned smack-’em-up and sure personal chemistry. Read full review
75
The Associated PressMark KennedyAug 13, 2020
Project Power nicely mixes elements of sci-fi and crime thriller to create a cool trip with a wink, set against a soundtrack that includes 2 Chainz, Nipsey Hussle and Curtis Mayfield. Read full review
75
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperAug 13, 2020
A vibrant and crazy and thought-provoking and immensely entertaining film that could have been even more resonant had it not settled for a relatively conventional final act we’ve seen in dozens of thrillers. Read full review
75
New York PostJohnny OleksinskiAug 13, 2020
There is enough detail and psychological nuance in Mattson Tomlin’s clever script to make Project Power more intriguing than most of what Marvel and DC have to offer, even if it could barely match their catering budgets. Read full review
70
TheWrapSteve PondAug 13, 2020
An imaginative, garish, occasionally corny and generally entertaining riff on the superhero genre. Read full review
70
The Hollywood ReporterDavid RooneyAug 13, 2020
What makes Project Power entertaining is its canny combination of familiar ingredients in a textured real-world milieu that gives it fresh flavor. Well, that and the dynamic execution of co-directors Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman and their crack stunt and VFX teams. Read full review
67
Vanity FairRichard LawsonAug 13, 2020
Project Power has a nicely saturated, jittery visual language, an aesthetic that operates in concert with Tomlin’s surprisingly discursive script, giving the film an actual grain of place-and-time texture. Project Power often has a pleasing specificity to it, even when it’s thrashing around in violent special-effects hullabaloo. Read full review
67
ConsequenceClint WorthingtonAug 13, 2020
Project Power is a hard-R action flick with a neat premise, inventively handled, and a winsome cast to coast us through the creakier bits of the screenplay. More crucially, it’s also got a sense of humor about itself. Read full review
65
PolygonKaren HanAug 18, 2020
Project Power’s burst of color comes from its central conceit and Joost and Schulman’s sense of style. It’s bright and attractive, but it fizzles out quickly. Tomlin’s idea is innovative, but the story he tells with it is tired. Read full review
65
CNNBrian LowryAug 14, 2020
The undercooked plot works just well enough to fuel this vehicle for Jamie Foxx and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, mashing up old movies in a fast-paced package. Read full review
63
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliAug 18, 2020
Underwritten yet nevertheless enjoyable. Read full review
60
Film ThreatEnrique AcostaSep 8, 2020
Anytime the characters aren’t actively trying to kill each other, it feels like the directors just got bored and are marking time till they can get to the “good part.” Read full review
60
Rolling StonePeter TraversAug 25, 2020
Whatever this eye-popping head trip lacks in plausibility, it makes up for in flash and a sense of a world spinning off its axis. Read full review
60
EmpireBen TravisAug 14, 2020
Project Power has considerable style yet a disappointing lack of substance — but an attention-grabbing performance from Dominique Fishback and an intriguing twist on superpowers give it just enough juice. Read full review
60
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzAug 13, 2020
The balance between spunky kid film, buddy movie, comic book adventure and rugged violence is, as you might guess, difficult to find. But it’s kind of fun to watch “Project Power” try. Read full review
60
The GuardianPeter BradshawAug 13, 2020
A punchy, likable trio of performances are the point of this superhero action-thriller with energy to burn. Read full review
58
IndieWireKate ErblandAug 13, 2020
It’s a lot for one film, and Project Power never revs up enough gusto to power through its biggest, best ideas and deliver on their promise. Perhaps the (inevitable) sequel can pack more juice. Read full review
50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Brad WheelerAug 14, 2020
Most of the film’s action happens at night, so we really don’t get a good look at the colourful city. Why hire New Orleans as a location if you’re not going to show it off? Read full review
50
Boston GlobeTy BurrAug 14, 2020
Project Power is the kind of action/sci-fi bone-cruncher where the cast is better than the material, the characters are more interesting than the premise, and the dialogue chugs along in the middle. It’s on Netflix and is worth a few hours if you’re in a B-movie state of mind. Read full review
50
RogerEbert.comBrian TallericoAug 14, 2020
In terms of both actual storytelling and subtext, there’s so much that the creators of Project Power could have done, but they chose the path of least resistance, turning a story of reclaimed control and buried human strength into a dull action movie that only gets by on the charisma of its stars and speediness of its filmmaking. It’s almost like they were afraid to unleash the power within their own project. Read full review
50
The A.V. ClubKatie RifeAug 13, 2020
You might as well spend a couple hours with this film on in the background, but don’t expect much about it to stick with you—except for the jaw-dropping Henrietta Lacks monologue. You may need to pop a pill to forget that. Read full review
50
Screen RantSandy SchaeferAug 13, 2020
While it's far from a refined genre-blending thrill ride, there's enough about Project Power that works to partially offset its fundamental problems. Read full review
50
Screen DailyTim GriersonAug 13, 2020
Directors Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman have crafted a knowingly cheesy action movie that flaunts its adrenalised excessiveness, while Jamie Foxx and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, playing two very different men in search of the pills, never manage to transcend the project’s fundamentally generic, cartoonish design. Read full review
50
Washington PostMichael O'SullivanAug 13, 2020
A serviceable, drug-themed crime thriller, made just a skosh more interesting by a handful of ingredients that give it a boost. Chief among them is its unusual premise. Instead of centering on the real-world scourge of heroin, meth, opioids or cocaine, it’s about a new drug — Power. Read full review
50
VarietyOwen GleibermanAug 13, 2020
Project Power has propulsion, little detonations of visual magic, the resonant setting of a still desperate New Orleans, and a better cast than a movie like this one tends to have. Yet watching it, you may find yourself aware of how patched together the whole thing is. Read full review
42
The PlaylistRodrigo PerezAug 13, 2020
Project Power, especially from these “Catfish” and “Paranormal Activity” filmmakers ultimately feels like a big let down— a captivating idea about the way the system preys on the disadvantaged and the constant exploitation and appropriation of black and brown voices, that fizzles out fast once the high of its concept wears off. Read full review
40
ScreenCrushMatt SingerAug 18, 2020
While the leads mostly coast along on sheer charisma, Fishback makes the biggest impression. Read full review
40
Total FilmKevin HarleyAug 14, 2020
There’s a chemical imbalance here… Netflix’s super-drug thriller is less than addictive. Read full review
40
New York Magazine (Vulture)Alison WillmoreAug 13, 2020
The trouble with trying to push at the boundaries of the superhero genre isn’t that we’re out of material, it’s that imaginations are so limited that a film that starts with a twist on a familiar premise nevertheless loops around to a standard showdown involving an incoherent blur of computer generated effects. Read full review
40
The New York TimesManohla DargisAug 13, 2020
The humanity of the leads fills up the hollowness, putting flesh, or at least charm and attitude, on their archetypes. Read full review
40
Los Angeles TimesJustin ChangAug 13, 2020
Its most memorable effects, though, are not technological in nature. They are the wary side-eye glances and unexpected smiles that cross Fishback’s face as she banters with Foxx and Gordon-Levitt and also the streams of hip-hop poetry — carefully scripted but thrillingly delivered — that come pouring out during a few welcome stretches of down time. Read full review
38
Movie NationRoger MooreAug 15, 2020
It’s not the worst movie of the “power from a pill” genre, an idea that dates back decades (TV’s “Mr. Terrific” comes to mind). But that’s one overriding problem, here. Project Power feels powered-out ten minutes in. Read full review
30
IGNRobert DanielsAug 13, 2020
The pacing drags through action set-pieces left obscured by messy compositions and limp, over-stylized visual choices. New Orleans, as the film’s setting, is wasted while the film’s gritty concept fails to deliver the desired intensity. Read full review
25
Slant MagazineDerek SmithAug 13, 2020
The film is an unwieldy array of muddled ideas that never gel together into a cohesive whole. Read full review
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