Rio Grande Herald Movie Critic:
Gerald Salinas

It's always exciting to see people with paranormal abilities. X-Men up to this date remains to be the only one who knows how to handle it (and I'm not talking about the movies, thanks Bryan Singer).

In world war II an experiment gone wrong by the Nazi made the U.S. a little envious, so we decide to pick up were they went wrong. Because of that, we now have the second generation living among us. The movie covers just about every super power you can think of, your sniffers who can sniff things and know their history, telekinesis who can gravitate objects, your shifters who can shift anything, your watchers who can see the future, and your pusher who can push your mind into anything they want you to do, and your others who can do some other stuff, as you'll see.

Nick, (Chris Evans) a telekinesis (I thought was gonna be the pusher since he pushes things) is hiding from the U.S. government in Hong Kong, and having trouble developing his power, which I find odd that even though he hasn't used it yet, he still tries to out hustle some hustler. Nick, being witness to his fathers death, is located by Cassie (Dakota Fanning) a watcher. Cassie's mother was also a watcher. Cassie who is 13 yet seems to be 12 and wants to be 14, whatever her age is in the movie, it is hard to believe how a girl around that age has been capable of boarding a plane to Hong Kong and making it on her own. Okay different story.

Kira (Camilla Belle) is a pusher who can push inside your mind, and is also a survivor of an U.S. experiment, and somehow finds a way to escape a highly protected secure government institute and is now being chased by Henry (Dijimon Hounsou) the leader of a government agency to bring in the pushers, however he fails to see his mission through when Kira escape with a syringe filled with super soldier effects.

Pushing along (no pun intended...I'm joking there was) this movie will introduce a lot of question and not really answer them. For one thing, Cassie informs Nick how they have to find Kira cause she will lead them to the syringe, which Henry is also looking for, and not just the U.S. government but also local Hong Kong natives who are also pusher/watchers. So now you have 20 future telling people looking for Kira, who might have a past with Nick, don't know anything about that. Kira holds the key to their future (paranormal people) for whatever their future may be. The movie drives you, but it seems like the driver keeps telling you "we'll be there in 20 minutes" while in the back of your mind saying "I think he's lost."

The movie does do a couple of things right. First off they got Dakota Fanning in the movie, a brilliant young actress with a great career ahead of her, well if she doesn't take more of these roles. And I give credit to the director Paul McGuigan for giving it a new look and for having some good scenes.

This movie does have a lot of potential. Going back to last year's wannabe superhero movie Jumper, which opened around the same time of year. What Jumper did was keep it simple. This movie being more complicating than it should be will leave you questioning everything. This movie wasn't a complete waste, it does bring some excitement but not enough to spend your money on.

(All movie stills courtesy of movieweb.com)