So Bad It's Good Rating:
When Push begins, a little boy named Nick is told by his father that one day in the future a girl will give him a flower, and Nick must help this girl--for if he does, then he will be helping all of humanity. Nick then barely escapes as he watches his father get killed by agents from the Division. Nick is known as a mover--not one of the guys who helps you move your belongings to a new house, but somebody with telekinetic powers who can move objects with his mind. And ten years later, Nick (Chris Evans) is himself on the run from the Division, living a meager existence off the radar in Hong Kong. Until one day, when Cassie (Dakota Fanning) comes seeking his aid. The thirteen year old Cassie is a watcher--no, not like the librarian who helped Buffy The Vampire Slayer, but a person who can see the future.
Cassie needs Nick’s help to find another girl Kira (Camilla Belle) who’s a pusher
(and here we go again)--no, not a drug peddler, but somebody who can put
thoughts into your head and make you do things against your will. Kira managed
to survive a nasty experiment performed on her by the Division, and she’s on the
run, and looks to be just as confused as I was while watching this flick. If
you’ve seen X-Men 2, or the "Fugitives" story arc in the
third season of Heroes, then Push will seem very
familiar to you, since it’s a derivative of those same stories. Super powered
heroes on the run who are fighting back against the Man--or, in this case, the
Division, one of those all-powerful, all-purpose bad guy organizations.
Despite its authentic Hong Kong locations, which are very well used, Push is really boring. It runs out of gas very early on, and it was a struggle for me to even keep watching, much less maintain interest in what was going on. The good cast of young actors--featuring Belle, a former child actor, and Fanning, a present day one--is largely wasted, and all look very lost as they utter inane dialogue that wouldn’t pass muster on a Saturday morning cartoon. I was actually looking forward to seeing Push, for I was eager to see how its ‘superheroes-on-the-run’ storyline played out--but as hard as the script tries to be a clever thriller, with plenty of twists, the story just fell flat because it wasn’t very well thought out to begin with.
And did I mention the goofy, unintentionally funny stuff? Oh yeah, about ten minutes into the film, Push inadvertently becomes a comedy when Nick and Cassie are being chased by a pair of guys who are known as bleeders--people who scream who loud they cause everything inside your body to burst, but the execution of this power is so badly done, it winds up looking very funny. Speaking of badly executed stunts, watch for the scene when Nick "moves" a pair of guns through the air with his mind. The twitchy, shaky way the floating guns move makes them look like they’re being held by a highly nervous invisible man on a caffeine rush. If only Push could be made invisible, as well.
--SF
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