The superhero genre has become such a ubiquitous presence on our screen over the last two decades that filmmakers are finding it more difficult than ever to put fresh spins on tropes and archetypes that have become increasingly familiar, and that’s arguably even more true for the movies that aren’t based on a pre-existing property.
The vast majority of comic book or comic book-inspired titles these days all hit similar plot and character beats, which has resulted in very few of them being able to stand out from the pack. Netflix’s latest high profile original will be hoping that it achieves something approaching the success of The Old Guard, their last star-studded entry in the genre, and based on the early critical reactions, it looks like they’ve managed to pull it off.
As far as high-concept original superhero movies go, Project Power boasts one hell of a pitch, with the story centered on a street-level drug that gives users incredible abilities for a limited amount of time, with the twist that they don’t know what powers they’ll end up with until after they’ve taken it.
Based on the trailers alone, directors Henry Joost and Ariel Schuman have squeezed every penny out of their $85 million budget, with the footage boasting some impressive visual effects that wouldn’t look out of place in a movie that cost twice as much. Project Power hits Netflix today, and as well as being destined to rocket to the top of the platform’s most-watched list, it also seems to be going down pretty well with critics.
At the time of writing, Project Power holds a fairly decent 69% score on Rotten Tomatoes from 49 reviews, which is currently higher than Extraction‘s 67%, and that went on to become Netflix’s biggest original movie ever. So, if the reviews remain this consistently solid, then it looks like the streaming giant will have another huge hit on their hands.