“”Push”” was supposed to be the action movie of the year, but I’m still waiting for the action.
“”Push”” is about a group of people who have special powers resulting from Nazi experiments in World War II that were intended to create an army of telekinetic people. Fast forward a few years and we meet the offspring of those experimental subjects, such as Nick Gant (Chris Evans) and Cassie Holmes (Dakota Fanning). Nick is classified as a “”mover”” because, well, he moves things. Cassie is a “”watcher”” because she can see the future. Clearly a lot of time went into coming up with classifications for these people. Nick, Cassie and anyone else possessing powers are on the run from Division, the government group created to capture the movers, watchers, shifters, screamers, shadowers and whatever other brilliant titles for people with powers you can come up with. Division is lead by Henry Carver (Djimon Hounsou) who also has powers. Basically, Nick and Cassie need to find Kira Hudson (Camilla Belle), the only person who has survived Division’s latest experiment: trying to make people like Nick and Cassie more powerful.
The first problem involves the screamers. Their ability is clear, but it’s the way they present themselves that just makes them seem ridiculous. Their eyes bulge out of their skulls, which reminds me of Saturday morning cartoons. I also think PETA would have something to say about the exploding fish. If screaming is going to be considered a power, then I guess hardcore emo bands have a purpose now.
The next negative is the action, or lack thereof. All of the action scenes were in the previews and everything else was just dialogue. While dialogue isn’t always detrimental, the dialogue in “”Push”” was just as boring as the action. It’s hard to follow a dialogue that consists of such corny lines as, “”I’m going to squish your head like a tomato”” and “”I still know how you’re going to die.”” As if the dialogue wasn’t boring enough already, the director decided to throw in one too many montages scored with slow music.
The only positive I can say about this movie is that I liked the high camera angles. For example, in the beginning the camera follows Nick with an overhead angle and then starts to gradually pan out and show the rest of the city. Also, I really liked Djimon Hounsou’s acting, which was similar to his character, Albert Laurent, in “”The Island.”” Overall this movie tried to be like “”X-Men,”” “”Wanted”” and “”Oceans 11,”” but it fell more in line with “”Disaster Movie.””
RATING: * 1/2
