Push (2009)

I recall seeing the trailer for Push maybe six months or so ago.  At the time, it looked like a story that had potential, but also one that could easily fall flat.  Unfortunately, I turned out to be right about the latter.

The premise, that various governments of the world had been developing psychic individuals, of varying abilities, for their own use wasn’t explored or defined – both organisations that we see in the film appear to be operating under their own auspices, with no “normal” oversight.  If the psychics are running their own affairs, why aren’t they running the rest of the world from behind the scenes?  And if they aren’t in fact in charge, how is it that so many psychics seem to be operating outside of the system?

The psychic powers themselves could have done with a deal more creativity, the Movers (telekinetics) especially could’ve been doing a lot more interesting things with their fight scenes, and the Bleeders should just have been left out completely in my opinion.  Most of the other powers presented in the film were interesting, although the way the rules under which the Watchers (precognitives) operate seemed to be poorly defined.

Push didn’t feel like it ended, so much as it just stopped.  Resolution of almost any kind seemed to be lacking, and we were no more aware of the significance of what had happened by the end credits than we were at the beginning.  Even the first Matrix film had a better sense of being a self-contained story – Push feels like it had the last chapter removed.