From director Paul McGuigan (Gangster No. 1, Lucky Number Slevin) comes the horribly generic action movie with the always original psychic powers plot device thrown in.

Chris Evans (Not Another Teen Movie, Sunshine, Fantastic Four) stars as Nick Grant, a second-generation “mover” (he can move things telekinetically) expatriate living in Hong Kong trying to keep below the radar of the “Division,” a government agency that monitors and uses people with psychic abilities for assassins, spies, etc. When a very powerful “pusher” (who happens to be his old squeeze) escapes from a division lab with a suitcase carrying a very valuable and dangerous drug that enhances a psychic’s powers, both the division and their Chinese counterparts are after Nick, to get to her, to get to the drug.

Then comes Dakota Fanning (Man on Fire, War of the Worlds) as Cassie Holmes, making her Lindsay Lohan-esque debut as a “watcher” (can see into the future) who drinks liquor to “help with her abilities.” She’s looking to Nick for help to find the drug also to trade it for the release of her mother, who’s also a powerful alcoholic “watcher” currently being held by the division. What ensues is a three-way chase through Hong Kong filled with predictable twists and betrayals. Make perfect sense yet?

OK, the basic idea of the story is adequate, but it’s been done many times before. The huge problem you notice right away is that the film plays as if you should know the whole back story and which each “class” of psychics is which (there are many different kinds). The 30-second narration at the beginning gives you the gist of this “back story.”

Push isn’t even a film where you can say “Okay, the plot is stupid, but at least the special effects are good.” The special effects are subpar and even laughable at times (like seeing the strings holding up the “floating guns” in one certain scene). The cinematography is mostly done in the “guerrilla filming” style, and while it’s not terrible, it’s nothing special, and definitely nothing new.

I knew this movie wasn’t going to thrill me, but I expected a lot more from Paul McGuigan, as Gangster No. 1 is one of my favorite movies. I don’t want to sound too harsh, but this movie: Epic Fail.