Imagine, if you can, a group of ordinary people with inexplicably extraordinary powers. They are as flawed as any of us, with tragic back stories and plenty of baggage. They are forced against their will to choose sides in an epic battle of good versus evil. They are even fighting against themselves! Who are these hardscrabble heroes? The mutants in "X-Men" (2000)? The heroes from "Heroes?" The vampires from "Twilight" (2008)? No! They are Pushers, Movers, Watchers, Sniffers, Bleeders and Stitchers -- obviously. "Push" takes place in an alternate reality where people go by these names based on what superpower they have.
"Push," not to be confused with the recent Sundance darling of the same name, might be cooler if so many other movies and television shows hadn't already tread the same ground. It also might be more interesting if the movie gave its own universe due diligence. The film makes it hard to feel sympathy for the characters. They are entangled in a complicated mythology that requires clarification, but the movie forgoes an explanation in favor of frenetic action sequences. The lack of attention and care given to actually getting the viewer to understand this alternate world and the possibilities within it makes the story instantly forgettable. A movie needs more than a hasty explanation over the opening credits, a few action sequences and an ending that is an obvious plea for a sequel.
We're introduced to "Push" through the telekinetic eyes of Nick (played by Chris Evans), a Mover who wastes his time failing to fix dice games in Hong Kong. He's hiding out from Division, a big, bad, vaguely Orwellian organization that wants to use people with powers as weapons. They're also insistent on giving the heroes some mega-steroid that is meant to boost their powers but will more likely kill them. Division has already killed Nick's dad for not going along with them.
Naturally, when a future-seeing Watcher named Cassie (Dakota Fanning) finds Nick and tells him that they have to work together to find the only survivor of this steroid (and that they'll die in the process), he goes along with her. It turns out that the person in question is really Nick's ex, Kira (Camilla Belle) -- a Pusher who can control other people's thoughts and memories. Questions begin to arise: Did Kira invent those memories and put them in Nick's mind? Is she just using them to aid Division in some strung-out battle with the Chinese mafia? Does the movie just get exponentially more confusing and make it harder to care about whether Nick, Cassie and her captive mom survive anyway?
Director Paul McGuigan, known for the steely cool of "Lucky Number Slevin" (2006) and the aggressive uncool of "Wicker Park" (2004), does the movie its biggest favor by coating it in a deep layer of grit. Though these people are heroes, they don't fly around in spandex or metal suits. Characters bruise and bleed. Nick's ability to control and fire guns from yards away and the Bleeders' ability to make fish tanks and brains explode merely by screaming seems ultra-cool when compared with the world of shiny CGI. Unfortunately, the Hong Kong setting is distracting, raising questions that are never fully explained.
While for the most part the cast lets the action do all the work (especially the always affable Evans), Fanning and Djimon Hounsou (who plays Henry Carver) stand out from the pack. Fanning clearly seems out to prove that she's not a kid anymore. In a running gag, she keeps insisting that she's "almost fourteen!" with the petulance of a toddler who is a "big girl now." Luckily for her, she mostly succeeds. She delivers as the emotional center of the movie and makes her uniform of knee-high boots and a mini-skirt seem a lot less disturbing than it sounds. Heavy-hitter Honsou does solid work as the Pusher Division henchman ruthlessly tracking our heroes. He lies well and kills without much thought, displaying numbness to the cruelty of Divison's work absent from any of the other bad guys.
"Push" often makes audiences wonder why all these people with powers are willing to be puppets for the government. Is it mislaid patriotism, the threat of punishment or a desire for power? But the movie neglects to answer any of these questions, making it hard to care about all the gritty action sequences. What it ultimately lacks is something to pull the viewer in and help it stand out from other superhero films. The only reason to see "Push" is to look at pretty people doing cool things.
