12A • 111 mins • 20 February

Director: Paul McGuigan

Cast: Dakota Fanning, Camilla Belle, Chris Evans, Djimon Hounsou

Rating:

“What if nothing we did made any sense?” suggests hunky clay sculpture Chris Evans halfway through Push, a superhero-themed mind-blender from Paul “Lucky Number Slevin” McGuigan. In terms of hitting nails, this statement couldn’t be more on the head if it were made stood atop Mount Rushmore. Because absolutely nothing in this film makes much sense.

The world doesn’t make much sense - in Push, everyone seems to have a superpower with a catchy name. Among other abilities, there are movers (telekinetics), watchers (clairvoyants), stitches (super doctors) and pushers (Jedi mind tricksters). By having no frame of reference to a single non-powered human, it makes the film's gritty world feel mundane rather than realistic - the first season of Heroes handled this sort of thing so much better.

The plot doesn’t make much sense - Evans plays a low-level mover hiding out in Hong Kong, in deep with the Triad and on the run from the shadowy government organisation “Division”. He’s contacted by Fanning’s watcher character, who informs him that unless they save a runaway pusher, they’ll both die in 24 hours. Once the complex rules have been inflicted on the viewer multiple times, the film then proceeds to break almost all of them. Characters act randomly, plot twists are quickly retracted, and none of the short and sparse action sequences capture the concept’s tangible potential, often coming off as silly. Evans hiding a pair of pistols during a dangerous meeting by floating them above his head? Pretty cool. The resulting floating gun shoot-out between two movers that looks like an out-take from Poltergeist In Da Hood? Not so much.

Going to see this film doesn’t make much sense. It’s obviously been cynically conceived as a franchise starter, but abruptly flicking to the end credits seemingly mid-movie is not a good way to start one - almost all good franchises at least had the decency to begin with a movie that has a beginning, a middle and an end. On the plus side, the dreamy atmosphere is sort of nice, and Hong Kong is lensed with an artisan’s eye - but ultimately, when Push comes to shove, there’s nothing here that’ll really move you.

Jon Hamblin