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This article was published 09/07/2009 (6279 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Knowing

AT an early point in this oddball end-of-days thriller, professor of astrophysics John Koestler (Nicolas Cage, doing his specialty of hangdog despair) hosts a classroom discussion pitting the concept of determinism versus the concept of, as Koestler so pithily puts it, "s happens."

At first, s wins. Indeed, it hits the fan in seriously epic ways in this movie, but determinism ultimately reigns thanks to a fey little girl named Lucinda who, in 1959, scribbled two pages filled with numbers and put it in a time capsule to be examined by elementary school students 50 years in the future.

That paper lands in the possession of the widowed Koestler’s son Caleb (Chandler Canterbury). When John gets a chance to examine it, he realizes the sheet predicts every major disaster of the past 50 years, complete with date and body count. Koestler confirms the data, bearing witness to a horrific plane crash predicted at exactly the time and place the paper Lucinda predicted five decades earlier.

With growing horror, Koestler realizes the most devastating event of all is saved for the immediate future.

Director Alex Proyas (Dark City) offers up a fairly provocative concept here, and he galvanizes it with some spectacular disaster set pieces, including the aforementioned plane crash and a wicked subway train accident.

But if Proyas is tough enough to show us a derailed subway car mowing down commuters like blades of grass, he is not tough enough to steer the film from a bogus-biblical denouement.

The DVD features typical extras including a Q&A commentary track from Proyas and an end-of-the-world-themed doc titled Visions of the Apocalypse. 3 stars

 

 

Push

EXCEPT for an absence of Spandex, the universe of the movie Push bears a resemblance to the Marvel universe of superheroes. Nick Gant (Chris Evans, who sported superhero drag as Johnny Storm in Fantastic Four) favours a tattily chic jeans-and-sweater combo as he bums around Hong Kong, attempting to use his feeble telekinetic powers to win at craps games. We see from flashbacks Nick’s dad was also a "mover" who was killed by a shadowy government agency known as The Division. The clandestine organization’s front man Henry Carver (Djimon Hounsou) has a policy regarding powerful psychics: If you can’t recruit ’em, kill ’em.

Nick gets a visit from Cassie Holmes (Dakota Fanning), an on-the-run "watcher" (clairvoyant) with a tragic backstory of her own. Her mom, the most powerful clairvoyant on the planet, is being held prisoner in the deep recesses of The Division. Cassie has foreseen that she and Nick are tied to the fate of Kira (Camilla Belle), a recently escaped "pusher" capable of implanting thoughts into the brains of others.

Kira escaped from the bowels of The Division with a syringe filled with a mysterious serum. And you don’t need to be psychic to know The Division will go to any lengths to get it back.

Cassie says the future is always shifting and never truly knowable and at its best, the movie aspires to the same degree of unpredictability. Some things are self-evident. Nick will learn to harness his telekinetic energy in battling the agents of The Division. Nick and Kira will have a romantic connection. Some visually spectacular battles will ensue between miscellaneous psychic camps.

Director Paul McGuigan (Lucky Number Slevin) goes in a counterintuitive direction from the slick comic-book movie, giving the film a grungy look, courtesy of a few authentically lived-in Hong Kong locations. He even gives little Fanning a drunk scene (how quickly they grow up) justified by the premise that watchers can see the future more clearly when they’re half-blotto.

But he doesn’t maintain a firm narrative hand when the screenplay goes off the rails in the third act, wherein Nick shows a hitherto hidden genius for strategy and all the good guys get an unanticipated assist from an all-powerful, barely seen character.

Hmm. A screenwriter gets desperate and resorts to a transparent deus ex machina.

Didn’t see that coming.

The DVD includes a commentary track from McGuigan, a few deleted scenes and a making-of featurette. 2-1/2 stars

randall.king@freepress.mb.ca

 

Top 10 DVD Rentals

1. The Code

2. Confessions of a Shopaholic

3. 12 Rounds

4. Gran Torino

5. Inkheart

6. Crossing Over

7. He’s Just Not That Into You

8. The International

9. The Pink Panther 2

10. Defiance

— Rogers Video, week ending July 5