Avatar: There is no doubt Oscar winning director James Cameron’s long awaited science fiction epic is an astounding computer generated fantasy that’s beautiful to look at on the big screen. The film is filled with images of multiple planets in the night skies, floating mountains with waterfalls, exotic vegetation, and flying alien insects that light up when touched. I can see how to some want-to-be filmmakers and gifted digital artists with dreams of doing what Cameron has done here, Avatar’s visuals are the equivalent of a computerized wet dream; a never-ending orgasm that lasts over 160 minutes. The same, however, cannot be said for the predictable storyline, which has been done countless times before. You got the villains boasting all their military might with futuristic fighter jets and laser cannons versus the blue skinned Na’vi of the planet Pandora who only have bows and arrows as weapons and fly around on prehistoric winged serpents. Logically, if not technologically, one would think the military would be the ones who’d come out victorious. There is nothing surprising when the opposite happens. The film may be big on digital eye candy, especially if you are seeing it in 3d or on IMAX but unlike Cameron’s Titanic (1997) where I kept hoping the ocean liner wouldn’t sink and shed tears for the film’s characters, Avatar is not only emotionally empty, but it plays out more like a digital show and tell piece. Cameron's epic is yet another disappointing example of how far digital technology has destroyed today’s movies where eye candy now takes precedence and enticing us with memorable characters and an engrossing premise comes dead last, if it’s even given a thought. Before long, the film’s visuals become an attempt to wow us by saying, “Look how far we’ve come in terms of filmmaking technology since the 1970s!” PG-13, 162m. Reviewed 1/7/10. ««½
Sherlock Holmes: Watching Detective Sherlock Holmes (Robert Downey, Jr) reveal how various crimes were committed by his nemesis, Lord Blackwood (Mark Strong), through flashbacks is like watching a CSI or NCIS episode. By comparison, we learn graphically how victims in each episode met their fate. What’s appealing about this latest incarnation of the famous detective is that although the film makes us think this is going to be another buddy movie with Downey’s Holmes and his sidekick, Dr. Watson (Jude Law), working together to solve a crime, such is not necessarily the case. Thank writer Sir Arthur Conan Doyle who most likely never heard of such a phrase when he wrote the books. Though I don’t think his Holmes was also an action adventurer as well. With a sequel already green lighted in hopes Warner Brothers will have a lucrative long running franchise on their hands, consider this series “Case Reopened.” PG-13, 128m. Reviewed 12/28/09. «««
Invictus: Seeing the melting pot of South Africans putting their negative feelings on race aside and coming together as one to root for their rugby team at the 1995 World Cup Championship match, reminded me of how people here in America celebrate when their favorite team wins the World Series or the Super Bowl. Of course, there was more at stake in South Africa back in the ‘90s when President Nelson Mandela (Morgan Freeman) took over. With his country torn apart by apartheid, Mandela asks South African rugby team captain, Francois Pienaar (Matt Damon), to win the world cup in hopes of uniting his country through sports. Director Clint Eastwood’s chronicle is just one chapter of Mandela’s life as president. I am certain the definitive film biography on Nelson Mandela has yet to be made. PG-13, 134m. Reviewed 12/14/09. «««½ 
The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call – New Orleans: Director Werner Herzog claims this is not a remake of director Abel Ferrara’s 1992 controversial NC-17 rated film that starred Harvey Keitel as a New York detective battling personal demons while investigating the brutal rape of a nun. The trouble is watching this version featuring Nicolas Cage in the title role where the setting is now New Orleans following the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, I can’t help but not only be reminded of Ferrara’s film which was disturbing, but also of Keitel’s hauntingly intense performance. The only thing worth savoring watching Herzog’s vision is Cage’s occasional over acting, whose character also suffers from drug addiction and gambling problems while investigating a brutal murder. There is nothing disturbing or intense about this lieutenant. The entire film just reeks of predictable déjà vu. Translation: We’ve seen this before. R, 122m. Reviewed 12/7/09. ««½
The Blind Side: The trouble with The Blind Side is for a story that is really supposed to be about Michael Oher (Quinton Aaron), a homeless African-American kid who eventually goes on to play college football at the University of Mississippi before joining the Baltimore Ravens, this seems to be more about Leigh Anne Touhy (Sandra Bullock) and her family who took Oher in. There is something wrong with a biographical sports film when the viewer is compelled to root more for Bullock’s outspoken rich, white mother who isn’t afraid of standing up to anyone who gets in her way. We should be rooting for Oher who grew up with nothing to live for and made something of himself with the help of a caring upper class family who took him in off the street. PG-13, 129m. Reviewed 11/30/09. ««½
A Christmas Carol: Unless you live in a cave or don’t celebrate Christmas, it’s a good bet you know Charles Dickens’ timeless story of millionaire Ebenezer Scrooge, who is visited by the ghost of his best friend, Jacob Marley, and three spirits on Christmas Eve. The Victorian story has been turned into a movie on both the small and big screen so many times. All there is really left to do differently with this latest three dimensional experiment, featuring Jim Carrey in multiple roles, is for director Robert Zemeckis to go the animated route and make it much darker, and more macabre than any of the previous reincarnations. That idea sits just fine with me. The whole point of Dickens’ classic was to scare the crap out of Ebenezer Scrooge in hopes he’d change his ways. PG, 98m. Reviewed 11/18/09. «««
2012: Every doomsday film that’s been made up to now that’s threatened humanity’s existence featuring giant meteors (Deep Impact and Armageddon both from 1998), aliens with bad attitudes (Independence Day & Mars Attacks both from 1996, War of the Worlds - 2005), nuclear war (The Day After - 1983, Dr. Strangelove and Fail Safe both from 1964), and meteorological disturbances (The Day After Tomorrow - 2004) pale when compared to the cataclysms that happen in 2012. The year, in particular the date Dec. 21, has to do with the end of the Mayan calendar and what seems to have most people believing, if not Hollywood, that the world will end three years from now. Picture someone ordering a Big Mac, fries, and coke and instead of it being at a local McDonalds, you are asked by director Roland Emmerich at the theater if you would like your disaster movie “super-sized.” On that level, I can’t say he didn’t deliver. At its worst, 2012 wreaks of familiar soap opera plot clichés done in countless other recent disaster movies. At its best, what 2012 offers is the emotional element. As silly as it may be, seeing various characters bidding farewell to loved ones and looking back regretting at how they didn’t make things right with family members in the past as the end drew near left me with the notion at how short life is and how one shouldn’t wait until the last minute to tie up loose ends. I swore I saw a guy sitting a seat away from me wiping his eyes, but I could be wrong. If that’s the best piece of originality 2012 could come up with, then I got my money’s worth. PG-13, 158m. Reviewed 11/13/09. «««½ 
The Fourth Kind: Milla Jovovich branches out from her Resident Evil movies playing Dr. Abbey Tyler, a psychiatrist who interviews patients who may have experienced being abducted by aliens while sleeping. The trouble is director and screenwriter Olatunde Osunsanmi knows nothing about how to tie supposed facts into fiction and make it into a compelling thriller. Instead, he combines supposedly actual interviews with the “real” Dr. Abbey Tyler and her patients with reenactments featuring the cast. The sequences don’t work and what’s especially insulting is the way each cast member is introduced in the reenactments that say “Will Patton – actor” playing Sheriff August and “Elias Koteas – actor” playing psychiatrist Abel Campos. It’s as if Osunsanmi thinks the audience is so stupid that he feels he needs to tell us when a reenactment is happening, like we can’t figure that out for ourselves. The bottom line is the film, as a whole, is a complete fake and raises three times more questions than it does answers. Other than supposed 911 recordings of people calling in saying they’ve seen a UFO to police or to radio talk shows as the end credits roll, The Fourth Kind offers no solid proof that there even was a Dr. Abbey Tyler to begin with, much less an incident where her blind daughter was abducted by aliens. PG-13, 98m. Reviewed 11/11/09. «½
The Box: Director/writer Richard Kelly’s (Donnie Darko-2001) latest science fiction nonsense based on author Richard Matheson’s short story, “Button, Button”, has to do with a “box” placed on the doorsteps of Norma and Arthur Lewis (Cameron Diaz and James Marsden) by a mysterious gentleman named Arlington Steward (Frank Langella). Steward makes them an offer they can’t refuse. They can either do nothing and walk away, or receive $100 million upon pushing the button on the box. The gist is someone they don’t know will die. With numerous plot twists, The Box keeps you guessing before falling apart in the final act where I wasn’t certain if the climax was really the big payoff. I better stop here and give it three stars just for the film’s out of this world original premise alone over the lower two and a half star rating The Box actually deserves. PG-13, 116m. Reviewed 11/6/09. «««
Where the Wild Things Are: I get real skeptical when every film critic in America embraces a children’s movie like this and I can find absolutely no one out there in the entertainment media who dislikes it (remember how much they loved The English Patient – 1996). I think the only reason critics loved this movie is not so much the film as it is their love for its director, Spike Jonze whose previous movies Being John Malkovich (1999) and Adaptation (2002) received Oscar nominations. Just because Where the Wild Things Are is based on Maurice Sendak’s nine page children’s story about a bratty little kid named Max who conjures up a fantasy world of his own where he is king doesn’t mean it’s for kids, much less adults. I have read how some young ones below age 10 were scared of the creatures and I can’t say I blame them. From a kid’s perspective, the creatures in Where the Wild Things Are really do look scary. From an adult point of view, I found them all incredibly ugly, annoying, and repulsive. Seeing these furry characters, I could not help but be reminded of that Sid and Marty Kroft kid’s show from the late 1960s called The Banana Splits which featured a group of adults dressed up as ugly looking adult dogs named Fleegle, Bingo, Drooper, and Snork. PG, 94m. Reviewed 11/2/09. «½
Amelia: Oscar winner Hillary Swank is no doubt a dead ringer for real life aviatrix Amelia Earhart in terms of appearance. Screenwriters Ron Bass and Anna Hamilton Phelan who base their script on the biographical books, East to the Dawn and The Sound of Wings, along with director Mira Nair know the notes. They capture Earhart’s private life with publicist George Putnam (Richard Gere) and her brief affair with TWA founder Gene Vidal (Ewan McGregor). In between these dramatic moments is the black and white newsreel footage showing the real Earhart’s successes and sometimes failures as well as her publicity stunts promoting various products and being an inspiration to women everywhere. The filmmakers just don’t know how to put any of this to music. Swank’s character is so emotionally distant, it’s like spending almost 40 years with someone you’ve fallen in love with and by the time they have unexpectedly passed on, you are unable to shed any tears because you haven’t really gotten to “know” them. PG, 111m. Reviewed 10/26/09. «½
Law Abiding Citizen: If the filmmakers were attempting to make a controversial point about how the justice system has often failed the victims, that point is gone within the first 30 minutes. When his wife and daughter are brutally murdered during a home invasion, Clyde Shelton (Gerard Butler) decides to take matters into his own hands delivering his own violent brand of poetic justice, from behind prison walls, against the ones responsible for letting his assailants go. In particular District Attorney Nick Rice (Jamie Foxx) who handled one of the killer’s plea bargains. You can sense what’s going to happen to Shelton’s prey a mile away, just like you can foretell who will come out the winner and no, it isn’t Shelton. Good performances by Foxx and Butler as well as memorable supporting roles by Oscar nominee Viola Davis (Doubt - 2008) as the city’s troubled mayor and Colm Meaney as a chief investigator are not enough to overcome the film’s unbelievable premise. R, 122m. Reviewed 10/28/09. ««½
Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant: Based on a comic book series I never heard of, I had to go to Barnes and Noble’s website for verification. Don’t be fooled by the talented cast of Circus Freak characters that includes Willem Dafoe as a decade’s old vampire, Salma Hayek as a Bearded Lady, Ken Watanabe as the circus conductor, Mr. Tall, who boasts an incredibly large forehead, and John C Reilly as Vampire Larten Crepsley. I didn't care one bit about the story in which a young kid (Chris Massoglia) chosen to be Crepsley’s “Vampire’s Assistant” and gets into a war between the circus freaks and another group of vampires called “Vampanzees”. I think I loathed The Vampire's Assistant almost as much as Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen and yet I give it a higher rating than the NO STARS I bestowed on Revenge of the Fallen. The saving grace here is the film's dark, macabre production values. Otherwise, this might just be the first Vampire movie where I wished a coffin was around that I could crash for a good hour and a half after losing interest within the first 20 minutes. When it comes to trying to hold my attention, Cirque Du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant literally sucks the life blood out of you. PG-13, 109m. Reviewed 10/24/09. «½
Paranormal Activity: This is the kind of “ghost-umentary” I wish The Haunting in Connecticut, which was supposedly based on true accounts, had been. Paranormal Activity proves the best way to make an effectively intense ghost story is to NOT base it on true–life accounts but make them look as though they did happen. You might call this one “horror-reality television” about a woman (Katie Featherston) who may or may not be haunted by a demonic spirit that terrorizes both her and her live-in boyfriend (Micah Sloat) in the early morning hours between Sept. and Oct 2006. Like The Blair Witch Project (1999) or Cloverfield (2008), everything seen is caught on a hand-held camera. The visual effects are so realistic that you are left wondering if what you are seeing on camera is really the work of an unseen demon as Katie is dragged from her bed by a supernatural force down the dark hallway. The final shot is the equivalent of seeing something unexpectedly horrific and the image stays with you long after the film is over. R, 99m. Reviewed 10/10/09. «««½ 
Zombieland: Rule #1: Cardio. Rule #2: Double-Tip. Rule #3: Seatbelts. Rule #4: Beware of bathrooms. Such are the rules college loner Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg) lives by, and many others when it comes to surviving in a world overrun by zombies. Along with a gun-toting redneck named Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson) and a pair of older and younger sisters who happen to be con-artists (Emma Stone and Abigail Breslin), the four are off to Hollywood, California to take refuge at an amusement park where word has it the area is zombie free. We know otherwise. What works here is the screenplay by Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick which offers a lot of comedic quick wit that Jennifer’s Body so desperately needed. R, 88m. Reviewed 10/5/09. «««
Capitalism: A Love Story: Whether you love or despise left-wing documentarian Michael Moore, one thing is certain about the bulky Flint Michigan native dressed in his trademark blue jeans, sneakers, and baseball cap. It’s hard not to ignore his assertions that make one want to do their own investigating to find out if there is any truth to what Moore says. His latest target here is corporate America laying the blame on last year’s housing collapse, mass layoffs, and the stock market mess on every Republican president beginning with Ronald Reagan. Reviewed 10/2/09. «««
Jennifer’s Body: Diablo Cody’s follow-up to her Oscar winning screenplay, Juno (2007) offers only half as much of the clever wit that won her the gold statue. “Jennifer’s evil,” says Needy Lesnicky (Amanda Seyfried) of her “best friend forever”, Jennifer Check (Megan Fox). “No, I mean she’s actually evil. Not high school evil.” Jennifer goes from being the most popular cheerleader in school to becoming a voracious maneater, literally, after being sacrificed by a satanic band who mistake her for being a virgin. Jennifer's Body has no message and the only selling point, ok, two selling points are the chance to see Fox swimming naked in a pond and the lesbian make out scene between her and Seyfried. R, 102m. Reviewed 9/23/09. ««
Fame: This remake of the 1980 original directed back then by Alan Parker is a cross between American Idol and a promising pilot for a new drama/musical series based on the 80’s television show Parker’s film inspired bearing the same name. Watching perspective students audition for various instructors in the film’s opening moments in hopes they will be accepted into New York’s School of Performing Arts is like watching supposedly talented singers perform live on network television in hopes of avoiding a critical drubbing from Simon Cowell or Paula Abdul. You will get no argument from me that these characters and their situations reek of familiar clichés. The soundtrack is forgettable and unlike the original Fame, you won’t be seeing any of the songs on the list of contenders for Best Musical Score or Best Original Song at next year’s Oscars. Still, the movie grew on me and I liked the performances by the young cast as much as I enjoyed the brief scenes of student interaction between the faculty instructors played by Charles S. Dutton, Kelsey Grammer, Megan Mullally, and Bebe Neuwirth. PG, 107m. Reviewed 9/25/09. «««
Halloween II: Michael Myers, the masked indestructible, inhuman, towering serial murderer of director Rob Zombie’s unnecessary remake of John Carpenter’s Halloween (1978) continues his bloody mayhem in this sequel to Zombie’s 2007 follow-up. Like the 2007 version, Halloween II is not scary, suspenseful, or fun. The film is instead a disturbing, tragic take on what happens all too often in real life murder cases. An echo on the life of twisted serial murderers and a tabloid take on how authors make money writing best-selling crime books about the subject without any thought for the victims. R, 101m. Reviewed 8/28/09. «½
District 9: District 9 is a cross between those interactive computer games where part of the game tells a story and then when that chapter stops, the player uses their mouse to do battle in hopes of winning so the story can continue. On another level, the film is like watching one of those in your face documentaries like NBC’s Dateline where various officials are interviewed about a tragedy that unfolded in some country. We meet officials and engineers working for the corporation, Multi-National United (MNU), who are interviewed about how space invaders named “Prawns” arrived over 20 years ago stalled and hovering over Johannesburg in a rundown spaceship that, unlike the Millenium Falcon from the original Star Wars trilogy (1977-1983), really does look like a piece of junk. The citizens of Johannesburg no longer want the Prawns around and MNU has decided to put agent Wilkus Van De Merwe (Sharlto Copley) in charge of getting the aliens evicted. Director Blomkamp based District 9’s idea on his childhood experiences living in South Africa during apartheid’s racial segregation between 1948 and 1994. The difference here is instead of putting human beings into racial groups, it’s aliens from space who are being put into their own classes. On that level, District 9 is an originally clever idea, making it an interesting place to visit but I sure as Hell wouldn’t want to live there. R, 112m. Reviewed 8/19/09. «««
G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra: The two words that best describe G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra is “no imagination.” The film’s supposed $175 million budget is the equivalent of giving a kid a 5,000-plus piece exclusive Lego set that had to be special ordered. Without instructions, the kid would have no idea what to build. I am not even going to address the plot except to say the characters here are as soulless as the plastic ¾-inch and 12- inch Hasbro action figures you see littering the store shelves of Toys R’ Us. The only saving grace is Sienna Miller’s The Baroness villain who acts like she secretly knows just how ridiculous a movie this is but decides to make the most of a lousy situation anyway. She chews up the scenery, firing machine guns in both hands, struts around in leather boots or expensive black pumps, engages in catfights with a female redhead “Joe” named Scarlett O’Hara (Rachel Nichols), and utters lines like “Nice shoes,” as she throws a woman out of an elevator at a Paris mall. She’d make a great James Bond villainess should she ever want to venture into other action adventure roles. I wonder how Miller would react upon my telling her I didn’t agree with the comment she made to the entertainment media recently where she said "G.I. Joe is not going to be the best acting work I've ever done.” PG-13, 118m. Reviewed 8/10/09. «½
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen: I will not be surprised if Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen goes down as the number one worst reviewed film of 2009. The film deserves the honor so much so that I actually hope it gets nominated for several Golden Raspberry Awards at next year’s Razzies and wins. This sequel to the 2007 summer blockbuster is critic proof and wasn’t made for movie critics. The picture was made for dumb, slow-witted audiences who have no sense of adventure and imagination, and for kids whose idea of adventure is to watch a lot of things get blown up. Whereas the original was kid friendly, which I considered a good thing, Revenge of the Fallen is just annoyingly loud and vulgar filled with unfunny sexual innuendos. PG-13, 150m. Reviewed 6/29/09. NO STARS
Star Trek: I admit I was a little worried about how this new Star Trek movie would turn out. I have always believed the best remakes are the ones that remain true to the original. Star Trek“XI” may be a redo of the original series than it is a remake of an older film, but it still retains elements that made the classic series which ran from 1966 to 1969 work. Trek alum Leonard Nimoy’s cameo as Mr. Spock appearing with a younger cast who take over the roles once held by the series’ originals might be seen as saying the torch has now been passed to a new generation. We’re introduced to Kirk, Spock, Dr. McCoy, Uhura, Chekov, Sulu, and Scotty during their early cadet years in Starfleet before they are called into service aboard the Enterprise to do battle with the Romulan Captain Nero (Eric Bana) in a time travel storyline which doesn’t quite make sense, at least to me that is. Then again, what mattered most to me with this film was the camaraderie between the characters. Everything else came second, in particular the laser battles in space and inside Nero’s starship which clearly look like they are echoing scenes from the Star Wars movies. I am not quite ready to say this new reboot of the Trek franchise will “live long and prosper” as the previous installments. The film is at least a positive step in the right direction. Then again, Star Trek “XI” wouldn’t be Star Trek without hearing those familiar words in the end of “Space, the final frontier. These are the voyages of the Starship Enterprise” as she warps off on another adventure. PG-13, 127m. Reviewed 5/8/09. «««½ 
Battle For Terra: If this clever, animated science fiction film has any flaw, it’s that the space battles look as though the filmmakers are channeling the Star Wars movies. What works here, though, is the story where the remains of the human race, who after our home planet is destroyed, attempt to take over an alien Earth like world as a means of survival. In other words, we’re the villains. I’d love to see a $100 million live action remake of this done with real actors and expensive digitally enhanced visual effects as opposed to hearing the voices of Evan Rachel Wood, Brian Cox, James Garner, Danny Glover, and Mark Hamill. Now that’s a redo I wouldn’t mind seeing get made. PG, 85m. Reviewed 5/6/09. «««½ 
The Informers: Now I understand what a friend of mine meant when after sitting through Leaving Las Vegas (1995) about a guy who drinks himself to death, he felt like putting a bullet through his head. Based on Brett Easton Ellis’ book about the early 80s sex and drug culture, which was also chronicled in his books Less Than Zero and Bright Lights, Big City, both of which became movies in 1987 and 1988, The Informers is a depressing, sleazy exploration into the rich, sordid, unhappy lives of several Los Angeles residents played by Kim Basinger, Mickey Rourke, Winona Ryder and Billy Bob Thornton. When the spoiled young rich kids are not busy engaging in threesomes, sometimes with the same sex, they’re doing drugs and asking themselves why their friends have begun noticing strange cancerous scabs on their skin and are always feeling under the weather. If this isn’t the immoral abyss of Hell, it’s got to be Purgatory. R, 98m. Reviewed 4/29/09. «½
Fanboys: Fanboys is a humorous but often times, unnecessarily raunchy look at how die-hard fans of the now classic Star Wars trilogy (Star Wars - 1977, The Empire Strikes Back - 1980, Return of the Jedi -1983) excitedly prepared themselves for the new prequel, Star Wars - Episode I: The Phantom Menace, the year before its premiere May 19, 1999. To be more precise, the story focuses on a group of childhood buddies, Eric (Sam Huntington), Hutch (Dan Fogler), Windows (Jay Baruchel), and Zoe (Kristen Bell) who take their dying friend, Linus (Chris Marquette) on a cross country trip to George Lucas’ Skywalker Ranch near Nicasio, California with plans to break in and steal a copy of The Phantom Menace. Fanboys works best when it parodies the gang’s dedication to Star Wars acting out Jedi mind tricks and arguing about the characters from the original trilogy. PG-13, 90m. Reviewed 4/24/09. ««½
Observe & Report: Midway through Observe & Report is a scene where anti-hero Ronnie Barnhart (Seth Rogen), a mall security guard with dreams of joining the police force is set up by a detective into thinking he passed the officer’s exam when in fact, he failed. The joke backfires when another detective hiding in the closet walks out saying, “I thought this was going to be funny but this is just sad.” Therein explains the mood of the entire film. Observe & Report is a racist, raunchy dark side of Paul Blart: Mall Cop, the hit box office comedy earlier this year that starred Kevin James as a lovable, overweight mall security officer who takes on terrorists. By comparison, there is nothing to like about Rogen’s Ronnie Barnhart, a loser who suffers from bipolar disorder and lives with his alcoholic mother who makes it his mission in life to track down a male flasher that’s been running around the local mall showing off his private parts. In fact, there is nothing funny about mental illness. R, 86m. Reviewed 4/13/09. «½
Taken: Taken has all the ingredients of a CSI episode, minus the fact none of the villains are ever brought to justice and that we never see graphic displays of how a bullet, illegal substance, or electrical current went through flesh killing the victim or how a bomb went off. What makes Taken entertaining is watching Liam Neeson as a retired CIA agent and divorced father turn become a walking, no nonsense killing machine who goes after the ones responsible for kidnapping his daughter overseas. Rest assured the sleazeball villains get what’s coming to them. PG-13, 94m. Reviewed 2/23/09. «««
Push: The advertisement makes one think this might be a fun rendition of NBC’s Heroes about people with exceptional powers wanted by the government. Push is anything but fun but it is laughable. The film takes place in Hong Kong and features villains who yell at the top of their lungs so loud, it not only affects the heroes’ hearing but also causes a good number of aquariums that house live seafood to shatter and litter the streets. The heroes led by Chris Evans and Dakota Fanning might as well be called Jedi Knights from the Star Wars prequels since they are either able to predict what will happen or can perform telekinesis. Fanning, now 15, who has been in a number of popular television shows and box office hits like War of the Worlds (2005) provides a show stopping performance of her own getting laughably drunk on Sake and drawing pictures of dead people she sees. I wonder if she is the long lost sister of the character Haley Joel Osment played in The Sixth Sense (1999) who often said he sees dead people. PG-13, 111m. Reviewed 2/18/09. «(This list will be updated regularly).
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