Push

For date night on Tuesday, we really enjoy going to the movie theater, and this time we were between the movies Frost/Nixon and Push.  We actually decided to see Frost/Nixon, but we messed up on the movie times and ended up arriving after the movie had already started – so Push it was.

Push is a very unique type of movie.  It is action-packed, and I was never bored, but the intricate plot did tend to go over my head at times.  Not only that, it wasn’t exactly a feel  good type of movie, and it carried a constant theme of doom and gloom.

Dakota Fanning (man has she grown up!) stars as a teenage “watcher” – a type of fictional person with psychic abilities.  “Watchers” can see the future which they draw on paper, and there are also “movers”, “sniffs”, “shadows”, and “pushers” to name a few of the superhero-ish types of characters in this movie.  Dakota Fanning’s character, along with a “mover” named Nick, must find a girl who holds the key to helping their type survive.  And they must constantly stay one step ahead of  The Division, the secret government agency who uses these psychics like lab rats.  The movie is set entirely in China, so the foreign element really helps to establish the complexity of the unknown in this movie.

Like I said, Push is a very different type of movie.  It was both clever and entertaining to see how the different psychics would use their powers to both work together and against each other.  The most intriguing of the psychics to me were the “Bleeders” whose screams could burst blood vessels (creepily done), and the “pushers” who could get inside people’s minds and make them believe things that aren’t true.  “Shadows” could cloak people from “Sniffs” who could smell a person from miles away using just an old toothbrush.

I enjoyed Push, which is not normally my type of movie.  I would be careful who I recommend this one to as well.  If you can get past a lot of violence (though worthy of only a PG13 rating), and you like superhero-like tales and/or science fiction, check out Push – you might be pleasantly surprised!