Push is a worthy successor to Jumper in the crappy films about boring, good-looking people with superpowers genre. It’s Scanners produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, part-X-Men, part-Heroes. The film opens with a prologue explaining that the Nazis experimented on pregnant women to turn their unborn offspring into super-soldiers. The U.S. government continued these projects and created a wealth of individuals with various mental abilities. There are Movers (telekinetics), Pushers (mind control), Shifters (temporarily alter appearances of objects), Watchers (psychics), Stitchers (healers), Wipers (who erase memories), and even Sniffers (who can sense an object’s history by smell).
The Human Torch, Chris Evans plays Nick Gant, a Mover living in exile in Hong Kong, a haven for super-powered expatriates. Years ago, Nick’s father was killed by Henry Carver (Djimon Hounsou), a powerful Pusher working for Division (the evil government baddies). He’s been on the run since and doing a decent job of it until a young Watcher named Cassie (Dakota Fanning) knocks on his door. Cassie enlists Nick’s aid in rescuing her mother, a Watcher held captive by Division. In order to do so, they await the arrival of Nick’s ex-girlfriend, Kira (Camilla Belle), who has just escaped Division with the film’s requisite MacGuffin. She’s stolen a briefcase containing an experimental drug that can either kill the test subject or exponentially boost their abilities. Our heroes must evade both Division as well as their counterparts in the Chinese government.
Push is a slickly made actioner, shot guerilla style on the streets of Hong Kong. The set pieces are fast-paced and cool to watch, but the most of the story doesn’t make a lick of sense. The final act features Nick coming up with a secretive plan so convoluted that the villains won’t know what they’re doing. Well, neither does the audience. It doesn’t just feel like the heroes are making things up as they go along, but the writers as well. It seemed as if screenwriter David Bourla was more preoccupied with setting up loose ends for potential sequels than building a film that could stand alone.
Chris Evans does a fair job in the role of square-jawed hero while Dakota Fanning has a fun scene playing an angry drunk. Everybody else is just spinning their wheels. Well, at least, we get Ming-Na Wen and her lovely presence is enough for me to save this from a complete dud.
Rating: *
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