Push

Push Billed as the years first true action-thriller, this movie falls short on both promises. But it had some good trailers and two solid actors in the lead roles so I took a chance. No I didn’t; I would have gone if it stared Jon Heeder and was directed by Ed Wood.
The stars are Chris Evans (The guy who plays John-ny Storm! The Human Torch, in the Fantastic Four franchise) as Nick, a “mover” and Dakota Fanning as Cassie, a “see-er”? Can’t remember. Clairvoyant anyway. We love Dakota Fanning. She’s growing up so fast, don’t you think?
The plot revolves around a hidden group of “special” people with certain gifts, or powers of a paranormal nature. Telekinesis, clairvoyance, far-seeing . . . things like that. A government agency called Division finds these people, hunts them down, puts them in uncomfortable hospital beds and injects them with a lethal toxin, hoping one of them will survive with their power greatly multiplied. I don’t want to say that this plot is derivative or anything, but have we heard this before? Let’s see now . . . X-Men, X-Files, Sanctuary, Fringe, and maybe a dozen or so others.
Nick is hiding out in Tokyo when he is discovered, first by Division and then by Cassie (Fanning), who draws pictures of what is going to happen. Naturally, a Japanese family of Specials is looking for them too. A girl has escaped from Division, having survived the injection, and she is carrying a case with a vial of something or other. Soylent Green, probably. Everybody wants it.
Nick can move things. Cassie can see the future. But Division and the Family have all those things, as well as what I like to call “shouters”, which are people who shout really loud and break things, kill people and generally make a mess of eardrums.
The director hoped (I’m guessing here) to make his movie visually interesting by hiring a five-year-old with ADD to run his cameras. There are lots of speed-up sequences, tried and true slow-motion, and bright street scenes meant to overwhelm the senses. For some reason it reminded me of Lost in Translation, but who knows why? Tokyo maybe.
These are not the primary flaws in the movie however. The big boo-boos are how the paranormal powers are dealt with. Once again, we find writers and directors who fail to grasp the simple concept of “internal logic” and consistency. The rules in this one are never explained, and then happily ignored. It just makes no sense at all. Plot-wise, it reminded me of Plan Nine from Outer Space, that cult classic by Ed Wood, who won a special Oscar for being the worst director of all time.
The secret to making a movie like this good, is pretty straightforward: You develop the plot without any of the special powers in mind. In other words, make the action and suspense follow naturally from the story about real people, with inevitability and logic, then once the story is right, drop the fancy-smanchy special effects in at opportune moments. Not the other way around.
It’s a glitzy movie. But it goes nowhere, has no discernible ending, and then announces a sequel with unabashed enthusiasm. Our only hope is that it does not make sufficient money to warrant another go.
I had to try because of Fanning and the paranormal angle, but I should have known that only a Zombie attack could have saved this one. Its rated PG-13. Lots of comic violence and fake suspense. Nita would have laughed me out of the theater.