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Push All Style, No Coherence

By Kevin Spak, Newser Staff

Posted Feb 6, 2009 4:03 PM CST

(Newser) – Push, the latest would-be superhero franchise, “has vibrant cinematography and decent acting,” writes Roger Ebert, “but I’m blasted if I know what it’s about.” Oh, he gets the basics: Movers are telekinetic, Watchers are psychic, and Pushers control minds. There are also Stitchers, Wipers, Sniffers, Bleeders, “but alas, no Writers or Filmmakers to speak of,” writes Wesley Morris in the Boston Globe.

The action blasts through Hong Kong, but “not much of it makes sense,” Morris writes. “The rest isn’t terribly interesting.” The plot sends curiously sexed-up Dakota Fanning and bored Chris Evans running from “the Division,” a nefarious government group, in “a frantic but meaningless clot of action scenes,” which “make Fantastic Four look like Seven Samurai,” says Kyle Smith in the New York Post.

[Images (3)]

[Videos (1)]

[Quotes (5)]

A screenshot from the tailer of "Push."

Chris Evans calls timeout in this screenshot from the "Push" trailer.

Dakota Fanning leads Chris Evans down a hallway in this screenshot from the "Push" trailer.

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"Push" trailer. (pushthemovie)

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Never have more people pointed more guns at more heads and said more words without anyone getting shot. - Roger Ebert

'Pushers,' can plant any idea in another's mind (including the idea that he should kill himself, a thought that may also occur to anyone who wastes 12 bucks on this flick). - Kyle Smith

There is also a group of villains whose superpower is to holler loud enough to shatter glass and generally ruin everything. Maybe they should be called 'critics'? - Kyle Smith

'Push' is that rare humans-with-superpowers movie where the powers are contagious. It made me feel psychic. Suddenly I found myself able to predict what Dakota Fanning would say next. - Wesley Morris

The MacGuffin would have Hitchcock harrumphing and telling Alma, 'Oh, dear, they really have allowed themselves to get carried away.' - Roger Ebert

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