Pushing Off: Push Movie Review

Push was a movie that promised fast action from the start and looked to end even faster. No wonder it was a big mess.

The movie was about super humans with various powers that governments and criminal organizations around the world seek to control as weapons.

The story took place in Hong Kong where Nick (Chris Evans) and Cassie (Dakota Fanning) had to save Kira (Camilia Belle) from the Division, the branch of the US government that handles super humans. The storyline took the same string of chords from Heroes and the X-Men, but did not quite reach the same note.

It's not so much the acting, but the story telling was incoherent and filled with so much plot holes that movie goers are required to be familiar with the likes of Heroes and X-Men to make sense of the struggles. If we had to draw from outside the Push universe, then the movie is not good. There were too many loose ends.

Perhaps the biggest among the loose ends was toward the end when Nick somehow managed to beat Victor, a fully trained and well experienced field agent. Earlier in the movie, Victor totally wiped Nick and was on the verge of killing him. As far as we know, Nick did not undertake any training to improve his skills to exceed that of Victor by the end of the movie.

Also, was Kira an agent of the Division or not? She defeated an agent in hand-to-hand combat and she knew how to use a gun...

Another problem with Push was that at no point in time did I feel that the main characters were in danger. Maybe it's because I stopped caring.

If Push is to be remembered for anything at all, then it would be for two things: Dakota Fanning's acting and the Pop brothers, played by Kwan Fung Chi and Jackie Heung. Dakota outshined everybody and convincingly played a streetwise 13 year old girl, probably not seen since Jody Foster in a much darker movie, Taxi Driver.

Meanwhile, the Pop brothers could become a cult hit simply because they look funny when using their powers. I definitely see profile icons, screensavers, and windows background with these two.

All in all, I rate the movie 2 out of 5. It's not a complete disaster, but it's not worth the admission of a feature. Perhaps if you're local theaters have a great matinee price or just wait for rental.