Push

Scott and I watched this movie last night. Or rather, I watched it while Scott slept through it. Scott's narcoleptic tendencies aside, it was actually a pretty good film.

It takes place in a (very cool) world where people with special psychic abilities
(ie: movers - telekinetics
     pushers - mind controllers
     watchers - clairvoyants
     shadows - individuals who can make people or things invisible to certain eyes
     sniffers - psychic bloodhounds )
are routinely experimented on by governments around the world. The goal of these government agencies, which call themselves "division" is to hyper-develop the abilities of these psychics, in order to create a kickass army with super-human capabilities. Unfortunately, all of their experiments have been going awry, with most of the individuals being experimented upon dying shortly after recieving the injection that is supposed to amplify their powers. The one exception to this rule is our heroine, Kira, who not only survived the experiment, but also managed to escape Division.

Yeah, yeah, I know. Its a plot that has been used time and time again.Evil organization experimenting on humans to create super-powered army. HOWEVER, don't write Push off just yet. What makes this movie a little different is the fact that this world has flavour and texture. Push's cinematography was its selling point for me--the way bright colors were used through grungy filters, capturing the environment of a run-down alternate hong-kong perfectly, making it seem gritty and real. Not only the way the world is filmed, but also the way it is written gives it depth. An informative newsreel-styled blurb at the start of the movie gives us information that traces teh experiments of Division back to the second world war and the Nazis, grounding the movie's fiction in our own reality (always a good way to add something tangible, or chewable to anything fantastic). The characters themselves seemed realistic, believably unsure of their own powers. The dynamic between Dakota Fanning's character, the thirteen year old clairvoyant whose name I forget, but who was made of pure awesome, and Nick, the male protagonist was particularly well done.

(See?)

All that being said, where the movie fell a part a bit was in some of the acting (I *really* didn't like Kira), some of the character dynamics (I *really* wasn't feeling the sparks between Nick and Kira), and, towards the end, the writing. The plot became as cliche as it could have been from the outset. Not only that, but things stopped making sense to a degree, and not in the good well-thought-out-confusing way either. No, plot holes developed that you could have driven my Lumina through.

So, with the good and the bad, what could have been an epic, lush, uber-cool movie was downgraded to simple good fun. Another downgrade and we would have had a movie of Dark Angel-esque disappointment (very similar plot. Great idea, excellent tasty setting, near-complete failure on delivery).

Speaking of, apparently this movie might be made into a TV series. Hopefully, HOPEFULLY, if this is true, the world it contains can be given a better treatment than Dark Angel's had.

While I'm at it, can I hope Jessica Alba shows up in a state of undress too?