Push

Review By: Michael Dance
MichaelDance@TheCinemaSource.com

Push is a movie about people who have special powers, but who don't really know what they are, how they work, or how to use them correctly. Sure, they've developed a shorthand -- "Movers" can manipulate objects through telekinesis, "Watchers" can see the future, or at least potential futures based on the current present, and "Pushers" can enter other people's minds and make them believe things. But that's more for style than anything else -- mostly, it's a down-and-dirty version of X-Men.

I happen to really like X-Men, so this messier, more set-in-the-real-world version, starring a group of expatriates hiding out (not very well) in Hong Kong from a rogue U.S. government agency known as Division really appealed to me.

That last power in particular -- "Pushing" -- is an absurdly powerful power, but the movie doesn't slow down long enough for you to really consider the implications of it until you're walking to your car. At that point you're too confused and exhilarated to try to pick apart the plot, and chances are even if you did figure out any plot holes, you could also come up with a reasonable-enough counterargument. (Your brain: "But if she rolled the ball because she knew the future, how does she know it will work out when she knows that rolling the ball will result in the future being changed from how she wants it to turn out?" Answer: "Because the ball-rolling scene is cool.")

There's only one plot point that feels legitimately forced: a guy trapped in the trunk of a car is able to escape when a body falls twenty stories onto the car and, I guess, unhinges the lock. Really? That happens late in the movie, when the hero is executing his master plan. Where in the master plan does it account for violent coincidences?

Anyway, I'll let that one go. The hero is Nick (Chris Evans), who as a boy lost his father to a Divison agent named Carver (Djimon Hounsou). He's content to lay low in Hong Kong, at least until Cassie (Dakota Fanning) shows up at his door: an eccentric thirteen-year-old who doesn't have any parental supervision because her mom is locked up deep within Division headquarters. She's trying to break her out, and somehow that involves finding the only person who's ever escaped from Division, Kira (Camilla Belle), who's also the only one to survive an injection of an experimental drug that's supposed to enhance your powers.

Evans has been on my radar for a while and once again proves that he has more than enough effortless charisma to carry a movie. But the real star is Fanning, who gives this already energetic movie the exact jolt of energy it needs in order for it to feel entertaining and not merely busy. She's such a good actress for her age that it's becoming a little ridiculous. Here she ...