'Push' & the Magnetic Pull

Sci-Fi Thriller Uses Special Powers to Maximum Effect

"Push" pulls into the multiplexes without much baggage. A thriller about expatriates with paranormal powers, the movie doesn't trail a superhero franchise. It can't violate comic-book mythology because it has none. Its cast is mostly undistinguished. Its writer and director are virtually unknown. Those are all good things.

The premise -- a hide-and-seek game between superhumans and a government agency in Hong Kong -- is old and well-trodden, but the execution is fresh, earnest and inoffensive. It's "X-Men" without spandex, "Heroes" with more style and better writing. It's a gussied-up knockoff of a Scorsese mob movie, given an opaque sheen of Clancy-style espionage and welded together with bits of Tarantino, Robert Rodriguez and Wachowski brothers. It's the perfect brain vacation for those overtaxed by ponderous Oscar-nominated movies.

Of course, some of us are just suckers for mutants. We walk out of mutant movies thinking we're half a helix away from paranormal evolution, and if we just roused the untapped lobes of our brain we, too, could put the garbage cans to the curb with our minds. Mutant movies are easy to enjoy. We want what these characters have: the ability to heal the sick, see the future -- and understand the plot of the movie they're in.

But like "Ocean's 11" and any of the "Mission: Impossible" movies, watertight storytelling isn't the point. "Push" seems to know what it's doing. We surrender to it and are rewarded with clever twists, a hip soundtrack, a kinetic spin through the kaleidoscope of Hong Kong and the unlikely-but-effective teaming of 27-year-old Chris Evans and 14-year-old Dakota Fanning.

The adolescent Fanning sheds the porcelain-doll image of her early career ("I Am Sam," "War of the Worlds," "Charlotte's Web") to play Cassie, a grungy-haired, boot-wearing Watcher, or someone with the ability to divine and then sketch images from the future. Using that skill, she knows she must search out and team up with Nick, a Mover (i.e. telekinetic) who's lying low in the vast honeycomb of Hong Kong housing. Nick is hiding from a U.S. government agency called the Division, which wants to harness mutants' paranormal powers for military purposes. Together, Cassie and Nick must snatch a briefcase from the Division or face certain death, according to Cassie's drawings of the future.

The story kicks into a three-way battle among the Division, a family of Hong Kong hitmen and a posse of rogue mutants led by Nick the Mover and Cassie the Watcher. It doesn't matter what's inside the sought-after briefcase. What matters is that everyone wants it, and everyone has special powers that allow for double-crosses, Catch-22s, stalemates, shortcuts and other plot acrobatics. It's easy to keep alive a thin story with characters who can erase injuries and change the appearance of objects. These would be the Stitches and the Shifts. Paint yourself into a plot corner? Have a Pusher use mind control to force a character into a different situation. Rounding out this subculture of paranormality are the Sniffs, the Shadows, the Bleeders and the Wipers, all of whom run their own rackets in the underbelly of Hong Kong.

As fantastical and contrived as this all sounds, the passing pleasure of "Push" comes from its glamorized grit, its no-nonsense pacing and the committed performances of actors roughhousing in the gray area between heroism and villainy. For a sci-fi thriller, the CGI is moderate and rarely a distraction. Even though every kind of camera speed, angle and lens is exploited by director Paul McGuigan ("Lucky Number Slevin") and cinematographer Peter Sova, the movie tingles rather than assaults the senses. It's pure popcorn, popped fresh, doused in butter, sprinkled with soy sauce.

Push (111 minutes, at area theaters) is rated PG-13 for intense action scenes, violence, strong language, smoking and an episode of teen drinking.