Film: Push

this was in no way a good film. i went into it expecting jumper the second, stylistic and sexy, but having no substance or twists. i was half right, but it's a clear upgrade over jumper.

first of all, i can't take chris evans as a serious actor for any reason. he was in not another teen movie, and like chyler leigh and josh radnor, he's forever tied to that in my mind. fantastic four didn't really redeem him, even if he played a more grown up version of his natm role as johnny storm. in push, he's a reluctant leader of a resistance, sort of. i'll buy it, because i always believe people are reluctant leaders, deep inside.

dakota fanning, normally a relatively solid choice, gave flashes of what i expect of her future. i think she'll be a little bit of drew barrymore. i was convinced her character would try to seduce chris's - "i'm thirteen, and i've been told i look fourteen." her range as a psychic is fairly unimpressive, but "push" limits the skills of its special powers noticeably. instead of being stan lee's all powerful mutants, the movers and shakers in "push" are regular people who go to the gym a bit more than average.

the plot of push was pretty disposable. i was actually most impressed (i'm not sure if i'm kidding here) by the amount of times the writers managed to say "you could kill this character, but that changes the future, so you should just stop." it's equal parts lazy and very lazy, considering. and since i know there are predictive movies (next, paycheck, minority report) that do it better, i have to admit wondering for much of the film why i didn't save myself the popcorn money and watch one of those on dvd at home.

the upside of push, really, is the expected bad guys - government controlled powers who abuse their powers. the run of the mill talents show off less for most of the film, and watching the government psychics, telekenetics, and mind controllers is actually pretty entertaining. if there had been more UFC style telekenetic fisticuffs, i could have truly overlooked all the faults of the film (except dakota fanning's too convincing decline from respected child star to child prostitute). as is, i'm not surprised the word of mouth hasn't been any better than existed around jumper, but "push" will be a fairly decent cable actioner in a year or two - jumper never will be.