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Push is a poorly received 2009 action thriller that caught my attention because it was a trailer on the movie version of City of Ember. It's a young adult novel come to life, and with a little more budget, might be more than a B-movie starring Dakota Fanning and Chris Evans before he was Captain America.
The story focuses around Cassie (Fanning) and Nick (Evans) who possess amazing psychic powers - Cassie is clairvoyant while Nick has a gift for telekinesis. A voiceover at the beginning explains a mysterious government agency called Division that uses these gifted individuals, although it isn't really explained what or how. This was a nice touch on the part of the movie makers - it would be possible to get so bogged down in backstory and info dumps that it would not be enjoyable at all. The rule of "show, don't tell" is well adhered to as different talents are introduced as Nick and Cassie try to find a mysterious case.
The movie was shot entirely in Hong Kong with little in the way of special effects; many of the shots are guerrilla, hand-held style sequences which gives the movie a lot of energy. There's enough suspension of disbelief that all the hand waving is perfectly acceptable (it seems like it's very easy to find anyone in Hong Kong, for example). There were some great stunts and I thought it was really imaginative.
Part of the problem, I suspect, is that also like City of Ember, the makers didn't know if it should be aimed at adults or teenagers, tried to go for both and never quite gels. The violence in the movie kind of surprised me, which immediately made me think it wasn't a film for young people (at one point, Fanning's character also gets drunk), yet the romance between young Nick and Kira swings it in the opposite direction. The movie is also very detailed and those who can spot the details and keep track of them will get the most out of this movie.
The story focuses around Cassie (Fanning) and Nick (Evans) who possess amazing psychic powers - Cassie is clairvoyant while Nick has a gift for telekinesis. A voiceover at the beginning explains a mysterious government agency called Division that uses these gifted individuals, although it isn't really explained what or how. This was a nice touch on the part of the movie makers - it would be possible to get so bogged down in backstory and info dumps that it would not be enjoyable at all. The rule of "show, don't tell" is well adhered to as different talents are introduced as Nick and Cassie try to find a mysterious case.
The movie was shot entirely in Hong Kong with little in the way of special effects; many of the shots are guerrilla, hand-held style sequences which gives the movie a lot of energy. There's enough suspension of disbelief that all the hand waving is perfectly acceptable (it seems like it's very easy to find anyone in Hong Kong, for example). There were some great stunts and I thought it was really imaginative.
Part of the problem, I suspect, is that also like City of Ember, the makers didn't know if it should be aimed at adults or teenagers, tried to go for both and never quite gels. The violence in the movie kind of surprised me, which immediately made me think it wasn't a film for young people (at one point, Fanning's character also gets drunk), yet the romance between young Nick and Kira swings it in the opposite direction. The movie is also very detailed and those who can spot the details and keep track of them will get the most out of this movie.
