In July 1999, a very well made Shark thriller was released called “Deep Blue Sea”. The story was a very good one. A woman scientist was desperate to find a cure for Alzheimer’s disease because her mother died from it. Her plan was to breed Sharks and change their DNA, so their brains would greatly increase in size – hopefully finding a cure for Alzheimer’s. Unfortunately, by increasing the brain power of Sharks they became much more dangerous and proceed to wreck havoc within an underwater lab comprised of huge compartments and tunnels – essentially the same idea behind all of the Jurassic Park movies.

The original movie in 1999 had four well known actors, Samuel L. Jackson and Thomas Jane, LL Cool J and Micheal Rapaport. The 2 sequels were low grade B movies with no known actors. The problem with all 3 of these movies, much more so with the last 2, is that there are too many scenes where supposedly intelligent people do very stupid things. Scenes where people dive unprotected into the water trying to save another diver, or investigate a known disturbance when they have no chance to survive within a large body of water with fast moving, super intelligent and vicious Sharks. The most iconic scene in Deep Blue Sea was Samuel L. Jackson’s speech to get all of his colleagues to calm down and a shark jumps in the air, grabs him from behind and drags him back into the water.

To me it is obvious that in 2017, 18 years after the release of the original Deep Blue Sea, that it was decided to finally make a sequel for one reason. The reason was the huge popularity of “Shark Week”, so two bad movies were thrown together with no real script only for marketing reasons. None of the two sequels were widely released and both went to DVD, recently resurfacing with On Demand. I for one, had no idea that two sequels were made from the original very good Deep Blue Sea that was released in 1999. In all 3 movies there are scenes of massive blood and gore, caused by human beings being eaten alive by large killer Sharks. Due to budget reasons, the special effects in the first version released in 1999 are much better than the sequels that were released in 2017 and 2019.

For fans of Sharks, Shark Week or a movie about highly intelligent vicious sharks, see the original movie, and run from the two sequels that are bad films with no real story. I agree with the very low ratings for the two sequels.

For sale is a pill that when taken can give any person super powers for exactly 5 minutes or kill them by setting them on fire, freezing them to death or blowing them up. This is the insane premise for the new Netflix movie “Project Power”, starring Jamie Foxx. The problem is, like so many insane action movies with an off the wall idea, the insane premise is never enough to carry the whole two hours. Also In this case, why would anyone take any pill for 5 minutes of super powers, when they could actually blow up by taking the pill?

The story is muddled, boring and run of the mill with crazy special effects in what amounts to the two main characters, Art, played by Foxx and a police officer named Frank, played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt, running around through different chase scenes, looking for Art’s daughter who was kidnapped by the head drug pusher of these super power pills. We never find out how or why these super power pills were invented throughout the entire movie. 

There is a side story with Art and a young woman played by Dominique Fishback, who is one of pushers of  these pills that for the most part works, but is not enough to save this bad story. 

I consider this a pretty bad action movie and unfortunately with rare exception, Jamie Foxx has made too many bad action movies in this career, this being the latest one.  

I agree with the low 62% ratings on Rotten Tomatoes for Project Power and do not recommend this film. 

The concept of a man falling into a vat of pickle juice 100 years ago and only because of the pickle juice he could been preserved and has not aged a day when he was revived is completely absurd. This absurdity is the entire premise for the new movie on HBO Max “An American Pickle”, starring Seth Rogen. There is nothing wrong with having to suspend all common sense in order to buy into the main story of any movie – especially a comedy. The problem with this movie is that even after you suspend all of that common sense, there is nothing that is funny.

Seth Rogen also plays the great grandson Ben Greenbaum, of Herschel Greenbaum and overall I thought the double shooting of both characters played by same person was well done. The story comes down to a billboard that was placed over the gravestone of Herschel’s wife and an attempt to start a new pickle business in order to get 200 thousand dollars to pay to get the billboard taken down. Obviously, this is not a strong enough of an idea to carry a 2 hour movie.

What is most strange with this film are the relatively high 75% ratings on Rotten Tomatoes and the very low 46% audience ratings, including IMDB. In this case the critics are very wrong and the audience is right. There is nothing worth seeing here, and I do not recommend this movie.