Movies

Movie Review – Push – 2.5 stars

Directed by Paul McGuigan

I hired this new release out honestly because I couldn’t find anything else worth hiring yesterday, seeing as this was a straight to DVD movie, my expectations where low (maybe not as low as when I hired out the Dragonball movie)… I’m kinda glad I did now because this movie was surprisingly entertaining and actually wasn’t that bad…

Set in a world where there are people in with special abilities like telekinesis, mind control, seeing the future etc. They all get hunted down and also recruited by a ruthless government organisation called the Division which is headed by Agent Henry Carver (Djimon Hounsou) who himself, has the special ability to control people’s thoughts. The story basically revolves around a guy named Nick Grant (Chris Evans), who has the power to move objects with this mind, who also saw his father killed by the Division (more specifically Agent Henry Carver). Nick is currently hiding away from the Division in Hong Kong and finds himself accompanied by a young psychic named Cassie Holmes (Dakota Fanning) who apparently needs his help to find a girl who’s run away from the Division (who has been given a drug that enhances her mind control powers) and also a case that holds very powerful secret that the Division doesn’t want anyone to know about. The Division runaway ends up being Nick’s ex-girlfriend Kira (Camilla Belle) and she then joins the duo along with a few other recruits with special powers to help stay out of the Divisions grasp and find the case that will apparently bring down the division for good.

As I said, I though this movie was going to be rubbish, but it turns out that it wasn’t that bad. The acting is ok and the action scenes and special effect are pretty passable (the scenes with the freaky screaming Asian guys were pretty cool). The plot twists are actually kind of cool too; however it gets a little hard to follow in some parts mainly due to the lack of explanation of what’s actually going on. Dakota Fanning definitely saves the film I think, without her I reckon they would of put some b-grade child actor in to play as the complicated and strong headed Cassie and it would have really pulled everything else down. The other support cast members including Ming-Na and NZ actor Cliff Curtis do a good job and dont let the story get overload with too many characters. Also the different use of camera and shooting styles bring an edgier feel to the movie along with the Hong Kong setting which actually gave everything a more interesting look as apposed to the cliché dark bustling US cities. The bad points however are still obvious, as stated before the plot twists gets a little too muddled up and you kinda lose track at some points. Camilla Belle also gives a very mono-tone and bland performance considering she is apparently supposed to have some kind of “supercharged” mind bending powers. Also the character progression of the main protagonist Nick is kind of lame, he starts out not being able to use his powers very well at all, then all of a sudden he can do all sorts of cool shit like control guns with his mind and throw super-powered punches and your suddenly like “what?… but I thought he was shit at doing that?”. The worst bit of the movie is the whole “lets leave the ending totally open for a sequel, even though this movie could totally bomb out at the box-office”…which it did… which means that sequel (if it ever did happen) will probably be an even lower grade film with all the original cast replaced by second rate “twilight” and “gossip girl” extra’s… poorly planned… very poor…

But I still didn’t mind it. It exceeded my expectations and kept me entertained. I’m giving it 2.5 stars.

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