Project Power | 2020 | R | – 3.8.5

Why is “Project Power” rated R? The MPAA rating has been assigned for “violence, bloody images, drug content and some language.” The Kids-In-Mind.com evaluation includes a fully nude partly visible man chased from a bank robbery, many scenes of bloody fighting and people taking a pill that alters them and exploits their “powers” leaving some dead from blowing up or scarred from the damage of the power unleashed, and at least 5 F-words and other strong language. Read our parents’ guide below for details on sexual content, violence & strong language.

---

A new illicit drug has the ability to endow users with 5 minutes of distinct superpowers — or kill them. A former soldier (Jamie Foxx), a New Orleans police officer (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and a teen dealer (Dominique Fishback) team up to find out who’s behind it all. Also with Rodrigo Santoro, Courtney B. Vance, Amy Landecker, Machine Gun Kelly, Tait Fletcher and Kyanna Simone Simpson. Directed by Henry Joost & Ariel Schulman. [Running Time: 1:51]

Project Power SEX/NUDITY 3

 – Two women embrace while listening to a man talk about a drug.
► A fully nude partly visible man runs through a city after robbing a bank and we see the color of his skin change, like that of a chameleon; his bare buttocks, chest, abdomen legs and heavily shadowed partial genitals are visible. A man wraps a towel around his waist and enters a room to distract two men questioning a woman (we see his bare chest, abdomen and back). A photo shows a couple of teenage girls wearing low-cut tops that reveal cleavage. A man changes his shirt and we see his bare chest and abdomen.

Project Power VIOLENCE/GORE 8

 – A young man answers his door to another man and holds a gun on him: the man enters the apartment, searches, passes a room where there is an alligator on the floor, finds the young man standing over a case of capsules, and shoots at the young man, who runs away, swallows a capsule and we see his skin change and sizzle, he glows from the inside and he bursts into flames, charges the man and the man shoots him and he is knocked back into a chair; they fight, the man’s sleeve catches fire, he chases the flaming young man through an apartment building, falls over a balcony, catches onto a piece of metal, jumps to another balcony unharmed, and the young man takes three more capsules and continues to burn while the man wraps a jacket around the young man’s head, punches him and holds him underwater while asking him questions; the young man explodes, blowing the man out of the building (we see the man with a bloody wound on his arm, wrapped in a bandage later) and he flashes back to a car accident where he is trapped in an overturned car with blood on his head and his daughter is taken away by men outside the car (we see the flashback scene a couple of times).
► A police officer at the scene of a bank robbery takes a glowing capsule and enters the bank to confront the robber: the robber (partially invisible) runs through the building and out onto the street chased by the officer, he gets on a bus and opens a bank bag that explodes with a colorful dust and it sprays others on the bus, he runs off the bus, the officer continues to chase him, he drops his gun and the robber shoots him in the temple and shoots another officer in the shoulder (we see blood on the other officer and the bullet seems to get crushed against the first officer’s skin, but he collapses from the impact); the officer tackles the robber and punches him a few times in the face (we see the robber’s bloody face and mouth, and the officer has a bloody eye and bruise on his cheek).
► A man holds a teen girl with a knife to her throat, another man takes a pill and walks down stairs toward her (we see gun site lights on his chest), the man yells and shock waves blow through the air peeling the flesh off armed men and throwing them through the air; ship containers are blown off a ship and a crane collapses onto a woman (we do not see the results) and the man falls motionless (seemingly dead). A man holds another man at gunpoint and many other people in the room draw their own guns as a man swallows a capsule and his chest explodes (we see his chest blow up with a lot of blood and matter spraying around the room); gunfire is exchanged and several people are shown being struck and blood sprays until one man is left threatening another man; he shoots three of the man’s fingers off (we see blood and his missing digits), the man takes a capsule and grows into a giant, he chases two men through passageways and is blown up by a gas explosion (we see blood and matter thrown through the air and a piece of his body splatters on a car outside). A woman is placed in a containment room while others watch her from outside; she takes a capsule, twists it to engage a glowing material and swallows it; her skin begins to be covered with frost and we see a cloud of frosted air come out of her mouth, and when a temperature control malfunctions the woman freezes from the inside out and we see what looks like part of her hand snap off when it touches the floor and she blows a stream of solid ice from her mouth as she dies.
► A man takes a pill and we see bones grow out from his body that he uses as weapons to fight another man until he is stabbed in the throat and through the head by one of his own bones (we hear a crunch and some blood splatters). A man slams another man’s throat against a pointed ice sculpture and a woman screams when she sees the man dangling dead (blood pours from the wound and we see blood filling a rocks glass when a bartender fills the glass from a spout attached to the sculpture). A man is shot in the chest and abdomen and we see him lying dead on the floor with a large open bloody hole in his body. A man takes a capsule and attacks another man, they fight and other men join the fight with guns and we see men struck and blood splatters (we see a man with a bloody neck wound that heals and pushes the bullet out, and another with a large exit wound on his back). A man fights with another man that can bend and twist unnaturally (we hear crunching); the first man traps the second man’s bendy arm in a door (we see the arm continuing to move). A man with a knife tries to stab a teen girl and another man stops him, they fight and one man is stabbed in the leg. A man bumps into another man in a street and the other man opens his jacket to show two handguns as he walks away. Armed men surround two men in a car and one man is taken away in handcuffs.
► A man forces his way into a building and hits another man that tries to stop him; he hits the man with a clipboard and we see him on the floor with blood pooling under his head and a bloody face (he’s presumably dead). A guard at a shipyard shoots a man a few times and he falls to the ground motionless (he revives later). Two young men approach a teen girl that is selling a drug, another young man grabs her from behind, they fight (two of the young men end up with bloody faces), they knock her to the ground and take her backpack until a police officer arrives and holds them at gunpoint before handcuffing the girl and sending the others away. A man grabs a teen girl and throws her into the back of his car and closes the trunk; we hear her kicking and screaming and when he opens the trunk she swings a large wrench at him and he slams the trunk closed again, he pulls her out of the trunk and questions her, and he threatens to kill her mother. A man in handcuffs is tasered and a woman tells two men to take whatever useful material from him and “salvage the rest.” Two men question a woman about her daughter and one slams a gun on the table to frighten her. A man breaks the door of a control room on a ship open and we see a fire ax stuck in the screen of a monitor as alarms blare.
► A man reprimands another man for taking a pill while on duty and tells him to turn in his badge and gun. A man yells at another man and accuses him of being under someone’s thumb. A man reprimands a teen girl for not paying attention in class and threatens to take her phone away; she storms out of the class and throws her book in a garbage can. A man describes the powers of a pistol shrimp and that it can “rip the flesh off the bone.” A man describes the powers that people develop after taking a pill and talks about one where bones grow out of the skin and can be used as weapons. We hear numerous 911 calls with people describing other people’s extraordinary behavior; like running inhumanly fast, developing super strength, etc. A man talks in a classroom about the effects of drugs and alcohol on an unborn child. Newspaper headlines read that someone outran a car. A woman asks a man what the “death factor” is from a “power drug.” A woman describes cells being “stolen” from a woman and used for experimentation on human DNA.
► A teen girl stitches up a wound on a man’s back and we see the needled pass through the flesh. A teen girl touches a motionless man’s face and we see her hands and his face glow until he gasps and coughs as he revives. A young man is shown with a badly scarred face. We see drug-type capsules that have a glowing material inside them in several scenes. A man walks through dilapidated housing units. Two unconscious men are shown with tape over their mouths as another man handcuffs them.

Project Power LANGUAGE 5

 – About 6 F-words (1 mouthed and 1 not fully enunciated derivative), 12 scatological terms, 4 anatomical terms, 16 mild obscenities, name-calling (bird, crazy, hottest hoes, Newt, rat, lab rat, fancy, wack, cowards, hood, punk, maniac, little lizard), exclamations (ah, ooh, shut-up), 3 religious profanities (GD). | profanity glossary |

Project Power SUBSTANCE USE

 – We see drug-type capsules that have a glowing material inside them in several scenes and people swallow them with a variety of results (please see the Violence/Gore category for more details), a song’s lyrics contain drug references, a man talks in classroom about the effects of drugs and alcohol on an unborn child, and a man tells a teen girl that her cousin overdosed. A man drinks from a paper bag-covered can on a street, a man takes a can from another man on a street, and people hold glasses of champagne in a gathering. A man has a cigarette in his mouth and asks another man for a light.

Project Power DISCUSSION TOPICS

 – Genetic manipulation, drug testing, parenting, greed, corruption.

Project Power MESSAGE

 – Superpowers come with side effects that are often fatal.