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Push
- (2009) Paul McGuigan - Director
and William Vince - Producer
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With the Superpower / Fantasy genre already having been thoroughly bled to the last drop by Hollywood, one would hope Producers and Directors alike would understand a film would need a little something other than a bunch of mutants running around whammying one another. (Like Kieth Ledger's The Joker, for example.) Alas, Push didn't get the message.
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Another Push catastrophe is rushing the audience through the intro - this is supposed to be where we, the paying customers, suspend disbelief and "get into" the story. However, Director McGuigan spent all of 15 seconds giving us the background (Hitler tried to develop a supersoldat with psychic powers) and to have us remember the entire paranormal panoply; Watchers, Pushers, Shifters, Sniffers, Shadows, Bleeders, Movers... (Whew... the film's credits have scrolled to their ultimate just moments ago, and already I'm not sure I can remember what all of these paranormals are supposed to be able do....) But the ultimate danger in having too many different superpowers co-mingling simultaneously (as did Push), is the Director himself tends to get confused - the audience is left asking themselves, "Well, why didn't the protagonist just use that other superpower, instead of...." - leaving audiences with more questions than answers.....
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Photography was mutilated at the hands of Peter Sova; we understand he has been served a restraining order by the State of California forbidding him to come within 500 miles of Hollywood. Much of the film was shot in low light, and was grainy to the point where we were looking for Kodak Super-8 to show up in the credits. Low light shots can be dark and still be entirely effective (remember Blade Runner?) Further, the aerial views of nighttime Hong Kong were panned too quickly to capture the viewer, and were jerky in spots. Unforgiveable sins, all - especially in an Oriental Gothic environment such as the one Hong Kong provides - without even trying.
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LEAST
Enduring Line or Phrase: "Kill him. See you soon. Nick"
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