Post by BIGFANBOY on Feb 6, 2009 0:20:27 GMT -5
PUSH
Review by Gary Dean Murray
Here's how most movies are made in Hollywood. Usually a screenwriter (or more and more a pair of screenwriters) goes to a pitch meeting where they 'pitch' the idea behind a film to someone at the studio. Usually they take two successful films concepts and blend them together saying something like 'its a cross between Star Wars and The Reader.' Sometimes a movie pitch may be the most successful part of the entire episode.
Such is the case with Push, a hodgepodge of half a dozen different sci-fi flicks, all of them better and more successful.
This is a plot that needs much explaining.
Since Nazi Germany days, there has been an ongoing investigation into paranormal experiences. It seems that governments have been finding and using these people with extra powers to build them into a super weapon. We have people who are 'pushers' who can push thoughts into other people. There are 'watchers', individuals who can see the future. We also have 'movers', people who can move things with their minds . And the best are 'sniffers' who can see the past of an individual just by sniffing their personal objects. (Yes we can all make a joke here)
So much for the back story.
The Division, a shady nefarious group of government agents and scientists, are doing an experiment on a young woman Kira (Camilla Belle) to try and boost her powers. But after the injection, she escapes with the help of a little crystal ball. Along with her is a vial of the serum she has been injected with.
On the other side of the plot and in Hong Kong, we find Nick (Chris Evans) a mover who uses his powers to manipulate dice. He is attacked by two sniffers looking for the Kira. He then bumps into Cassie (Dakota Fanning) a watcher who uses drawings to see the future. And the future she sees is very bleak with much mayhem and death on the horizon. Nick saw his father killed years ago by a leader of the Division Henry Carver (Djimon Hounsou) who has been hunting down paranormal persons for experimentation. So Nick has a grudge against Carver.
Cassie knows that Nick is to help her find Kira. But, bad guys are looking for both Kira and the vial of serum. They are a bunch of pushers who have eyeballs that turn into fish eyes whenever their powers are used. Somehow they have to scream whenever they use their powers. They also have a watcher who knows a different future. This other watcher sees that she will kill Cassie.
So the entire film becomes a stylized Mexican standoff with the good guys vs the bad guys vs the badder guys aka the Division. It seems that everyone wants the serum and Kira (who had her memory washed) holds the key to finding the missing element—as Hitchcock called it 'the McGuffin'.
This film is such a mess in so many different ways. The film tries to be like a cheesy Asian chop-socky action flick with quirky characters and over the top action. Then it changes gears to be an Old Boy looking vengeance play. Spinning out of control, it morphs into a chase flick. It is as if the writers couldn't decide exactly what kind of film they wanted to make and decided to make them all at the same time.
But the basic fault of Push has to fall on the shoulders of director Paul McGuigan. A man who made an interesting little film with Lucky Nu mber Slevin seems to be lost with a convoluted story that is so ridden with different contrasting elements that he is lost. While there are some great action set pieces, the film drags along for way too long without anything interesting happening.
In so many very bad ways this film reminded me of Jumper from last year, another mix of sci-fi clichés blended together to make a weak whole. The film geek crowd will flock to this film and some will praise its use of style and symbolism over substance. But this is a flick more trying to be different than actually succeeding. And the last scene is set up in such a way that it begs for the sequel, even worse than The Golden Compass did a few seasons back. We can only hope that we won't be Pushed that far.
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