Push - Like Heroes...only dumber.

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It’s one of the principal rules of storytelling: “show, don’t tell”.  So we weren’t off to a good start when, as the opening credits roll, we are treated to Dakota Fanning’s voice-over of convoluted exposition providing us the “rules” of the world we’re about to enter.  Here they are: there are three types of people in the world of Push.  “Movers,” people who can move things with their minds (those of you with a GED or better will know this as “telekinesis”).  “Watchers”, people who can see the future.  And finally, “Pushers,” people who can place, or push, thoughts and memories into your head that are so vivid, you’re compelled to act upon them.  (Think, “These aren’t the droids you’re looking for”.)  So now that we’ve absorbed this fairly rudimentary information, we’re ready to hit the ground running, right?

Wrong.  Why?  Because it’s almost instantly revealed that this world is populated with infinitely more people possessing powers than the three mentioned in the credits.  There are people that have sonic screams that make things explode, or “sniffers” that have the ability to track people via the use of “super smell,” or people that can shape-shift items, or “shadowers” that can cast a “shadow” in order to hide you from “sniffers.”  So, why did they waste our time spelling out just three of these powers when it’s basically just X-Men without costumes?

Dakota Fanning plays Cassie Holmes, a young “watcher” trying to track down her mother (a legendary “watcher” that has been captured by the U.S. government).    Fanning spends the bulk of the movie in a mini-skirt, which only serves to remind us how frighteningly thin she is.  The only thing someone should be “pushing” is a sandwich down this girl’s throat.  Unless her next movie is about the only blonde-haired, blue-eyed girl at Auschwitz, somebody needs to start feeding this chick pronto. 

Cassie partners up with Nick Gant (Chris Evans), a charisma-less, smalltime grifter living in Hong Kong attempting to use his nascent “mover” powers to cheat in back alley craps games.  Nick escaped the U.S. government as a boy but not before his father, who was apparently a “watcher,” tells him that one day, a girl matching Fanning’s description will appear and that he should help her. 

From there, they partner up with Kira (Camilla Belle) who is on the run from the government as well and is also a former love interest of Nick.  They are on a quest to find a briefcase before the U.S. government (and the Chinese mafia) does.  The Chinese mob has their own their own super-powered team trying to track down the case.

Still reading?  God love you.

Push is great looking but completely ludicrous.  Nothing in the film makes sense.  It attempts to play games with reality and our perception of it; what’s real and what’s been “pushed?”  But all it does is confuse, anger and bore us with pseudo-scientific superpowers and extended scenes of people doing nothing but talking about what to do next.  Furthermore, the notion of “pushing” is used as a plot device to change the motivation of characters whenever it suits the filmmakers’ needs.   This movie is like Heroes, only dumber.  And I didn’t think that was possible.  It took Heroes 3 years to get this dumb.  Push does it in 90 minutes. 

On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being The Matrix and 1 being Firestarter, Push gets a 3.

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