STARS: CHRIS EVANS, CAMILLA BELLE, DAKOTA FANNING, AND DJIMON HOUNSOU.
DIRECTED BY: PAUL McGUIGAN
RELEASED: 2009
RUN TIME: 111 MIN.
RATED: PG-13
PUSH, is a mix of JUMPER style espionage and HEROES style paranormal powers. I didn’t find the film hard to follow, however I did find the film boring and very derivative of similar sci-fi trends mainly (HEROES). Nobody can fly in this film but is there really anything new here?
Nick Gant (Evans) has been on the run from a psychic espionage group known as The Division ever since they killed his father. Taking refuge in the crowded slums of Hong Kong, only works for so long as he’s relocated by Division agents. It seems they are actively pursuing a fugitive test subject that escaped after surviving a new psychic enhancement drug. After finding out that Nick has had no contact with her, they leave him with a warning not to run as they now know where he is.
Enter Cassie Holmes (Fanning), she’s the 13 year old daughter of the most powerful paranormal test subject The Division has ever known. Like her mother, Cassie has the power to see the future. However a world where the future can be seen, is also a world where the future can be altered. She meets up with Nick and tells him that he’s going to help her find a missing case that’s at the center of the Division’s pursuit. Because of something his father told him years ago, Nick believes her and they team up to find the case and save Cassie’s mother from the Division.
The missing fugitive Kira (Belle), holds the key to finding the missing case. Unfortunately she’s had her memory wiped and doesn’t know how she arrived in Hong Kong or anything else. She does have the power to make people believe whatever she wants, and she uses that to escape the Division sniffer agents that finally catch up with her. Unfortunately the Chinese also have a Division and they know about the case, they just don’t know what’s inside.
Nick and Cassie attempt to find Kira before the American and Chinese Division’s kill them all, as Cassie constantly reminds Nick that she sees them all dying in the near future.
Decent performances from Chris Evans and Dakota Fanning, yet the story is eventfully anti climatic and overall comes across as a “Lost in Translation”, Hong Kong version of a Heroes 2 parter. The effects are decent except for a comical scene where handguns are used by paranormals to shoot at each other. Overall this film is a rental at best as I found myself bored with the visual beauty of it all…