![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rsadelleLet me start with a seemingly unrelated story. We were chatting in belly dance last night about shows that get better (one of the women in the class said Lie To Me gets better after the pilot, and the current other fangirl in the class said someone tried to get her into Smallville by saying it got better in season 8, which I laughed at), and I realized that I forgot to turn on the DTV box, which means I taped static instead of Supernatural. I thought that it would be okay because I could just watch it online. So this morning when I was ready to watch while lifting weights and making lunch, I spent twenty minutes trying to find a watchable video. Of the two I could get to play, one of them had the audio so out of sync I wasn't willing to put up with it, and the other got all wonky and stretched out on full screen. (I'm sure someone will come along to tell me this could all be easier if I used BitTorrent, but that's not the point of this story. It would also be easier if networks would realize people will watch their shows on their sites with ads if they post them the next day, but that's also not the point of this story.) I finally got frustrated and decided I would just watch Burn Notice instead, since I also usually catch up on that on Fridays. So I'm watching this week's ep, and all of a sudden, "Hey, it's that guy!" That guy, in this case, was Joel Gretsch, who played Tom on The 4400. Here's where this story starts to relate. Push starts out with a scene that takes place ten years ago. Guess who's in that scene? Yes, that's right: Joel Gretsch, playing the father of Nick, our protagonist. Now here's where it relates even more: we also see Nick ten years ago. I was watching it thinking, "Wait, is that?" And then, "No, no, you're only thinking that because it's Friday and you usually watch SPN on Fridays." But, no, my first thought was right. Young Nick is played by Colin Ford, who also played young Sam in two SPN eps.
That seems like an auspicious beginning, and indeed it was. As far as sci fi goes, Push is not as awesome as Babylon A.D., but I still very much liked it. In fact, aside from a (not insignificant, I admit) point to be made about how our heroes are white and the villains are almost all poc, I don't think there was anything I disliked about it.
Part of why I wanted to see this movie is because I love Dakota Fanning, and she did a great job as Cassie. I really liked the way they wrote/directed/played Cassie's relationship with Nick. I got the sense that he was supposed to look at her as a little sister/daughter while she had a crush on him (their rival watcher, who I also really liked, says something about her fantasies never coming true), and it works really well. Cassie's thirteen, and she's pretty damn self-reliant - she gets Nick off his ass to help her find Kira - but it still works when she has a moment of fear and starts to cry. I hope Dakota Fanning continues to go for interesting, meaty roles instead of falling into some of the other kinds of roles that are written for older teenagers and women in their twenties. I don't want to see her stuck playing a wimpy romantic lead.
I also really liked Nick's relationship with Kira. They have a past, which we don't know until Nick and Cassie find her, and their relationship works for me. She says, "You didn't come for me" (which, actually, I really liked it that she [mostly] saved herself from Division), but it doesn't stop them from still being together. I got the sense they'd been apart for a significant amount of time - the Division sniffers say that Nick's been alone in his apartment for a really long time - and yet they fall right back into their relationship, and when Nick comes back to her at one point, she just accepts him lying down with her even though she's mostly out of it.
I say she only mostly saved herself, because she'd have been caught if it weren't for the marble dropped by another Division captive we see only from the back. We get to watch the marble roll through the halls, bounce off a couple of doors, and finally jam the door that would seal Kira into the building. Only later do we find out that the woman who drops the marble is Cassie's mother. She's the thread that ties the whole story together: Nick's dad tells him that a woman told him that someday a girl would give Nick a flower and that he had to help her. The stitcher says that she owes Cassie's mom a favor, and that Cassie's mom told her to come and heal Nick. The man who wipes Kira's memory was told to and paid by Cassie's mother. I love that she's set the whole thing in motion, and that we never really see her.
I also love the open-ended ending, even if it doesn't do well enough at the box office to get a sequel. Cassie and Nick walk away with the syringe and Nick saying they can trade it for Cassie's mom, and Kira, half a world away on a plane, follows the directions in the last letter and kills Carver.
That seems like an auspicious beginning, and indeed it was. As far as sci fi goes, Push is not as awesome as Babylon A.D., but I still very much liked it. In fact, aside from a (not insignificant, I admit) point to be made about how our heroes are white and the villains are almost all poc, I don't think there was anything I disliked about it.
Part of why I wanted to see this movie is because I love Dakota Fanning, and she did a great job as Cassie. I really liked the way they wrote/directed/played Cassie's relationship with Nick. I got the sense that he was supposed to look at her as a little sister/daughter while she had a crush on him (their rival watcher, who I also really liked, says something about her fantasies never coming true), and it works really well. Cassie's thirteen, and she's pretty damn self-reliant - she gets Nick off his ass to help her find Kira - but it still works when she has a moment of fear and starts to cry. I hope Dakota Fanning continues to go for interesting, meaty roles instead of falling into some of the other kinds of roles that are written for older teenagers and women in their twenties. I don't want to see her stuck playing a wimpy romantic lead.
I also really liked Nick's relationship with Kira. They have a past, which we don't know until Nick and Cassie find her, and their relationship works for me. She says, "You didn't come for me" (which, actually, I really liked it that she [mostly] saved herself from Division), but it doesn't stop them from still being together. I got the sense they'd been apart for a significant amount of time - the Division sniffers say that Nick's been alone in his apartment for a really long time - and yet they fall right back into their relationship, and when Nick comes back to her at one point, she just accepts him lying down with her even though she's mostly out of it.
I say she only mostly saved herself, because she'd have been caught if it weren't for the marble dropped by another Division captive we see only from the back. We get to watch the marble roll through the halls, bounce off a couple of doors, and finally jam the door that would seal Kira into the building. Only later do we find out that the woman who drops the marble is Cassie's mother. She's the thread that ties the whole story together: Nick's dad tells him that a woman told him that someday a girl would give Nick a flower and that he had to help her. The stitcher says that she owes Cassie's mom a favor, and that Cassie's mom told her to come and heal Nick. The man who wipes Kira's memory was told to and paid by Cassie's mother. I love that she's set the whole thing in motion, and that we never really see her.
I also love the open-ended ending, even if it doesn't do well enough at the box office to get a sequel. Cassie and Nick walk away with the syringe and Nick saying they can trade it for Cassie's mom, and Kira, half a world away on a plane, follows the directions in the last letter and kills Carver.