The Film Vindicator Review: Scanners II: The New Order

And here we go folks we’re trending through trenches in the form of the Scanners sequels/spin-offs. Now as I said from my Scanners review none of these films weren’t directed by David Cronenberg so chances are these films may be as good as the original.

We open on man who is screaming for some reason; I guess he must’ve read Twilight. We see the crazy screaming man entering an arcade place and begin playing a rail-shooter game. Suddenly the light gun controller is moving on its own as the crazy screaming man backs away a bit looking like he’s spazzing out. Apparently this guy is a Scanner who is controlling the light gun. His Scanner spasm continues until a security guard tries to stop him but gets force push…no wait Scanner push across the arcade place…yeah that’s better. The crazy screaming man freaks out and all of the arcades began to shake and then explode as the people run in a panic. Cut to the crazy screaming man hiding out in an abandon factory continuing to lose his shit at some mannequins…just go with it. Police arrived at the factory along with a couple of men armed with tranquilizer guns; move in and managed to apprehend him. Cut to the Morse Neurological Research Institute where we’re introduced to a Dr. Morse (played by Tom Butler) who is on his way to a secret lower level laboratory. There he tries to help the crazy screaming man Peter Drak (played by Raoul Trujillo) Drak is not listening and attempts to scan Morse’s mind but is injected with Ephemerol 2 or Eph 2. Morse is approached by Commander John Forrester (played by Yvan Ponton) who is very upset of Drak being injected with Eph 2. Apparently this new Ephemerol not only suppresses the Scanner abilities but becomes dangerously addictive; turning Scanners into Eph 2 junkies becoming useless to Forrester. Later we cut to our main character David Kellum (played by David Hewlett) who is a student at a veterinary school. At the school David arrives at pet surgery class already in progress when he starts hearing thoughts from his instructor and other students. Unable to stop the thoughts he leaves the room while Alice Leonardo (played by Isabelle Mejias) follows him. The two began to flirt and Alice asked him out her dinner; later they head to a diner until David starts hearing again and runs off as Alice follows. Cut to two men making drug dealings to a corrupt lawyer; but the corrupt lawyer is very suspicious and calls in an armed bodyguard. However, revealing to be Scanners and working for Forrester the two men take control of the corrupt lawyer and the bodyguard. They’ve taken the money and drugs from the corrupt lawyer and command the bodyguard to shoot the corrupt lawyer dead. The bodyguard tries to get away but is gun down by Forrester and his men. Later David stops by at Alice’s apartment about to have dinner but she needs a few items to finish cooking. David and Alice go to a nearby convenience store to pick up a few things when suddenly two armed robbers entered the store. One of the armed robbers takes Alice while the other guns down both of the store workers. David steps in and takes out the first robber then takes out the second by the most awesome fashion possible. That’s right David makes the guy’s head go KABOOM; well it wouldn’t be a Scanners film without at least one head explosion.

We cut to Forrester and Morse watching the store’s surveillance camera of what David just did and are now taking interests. Cut to a hospital David goes to see Alice who is recovering from a concussion, she asked David what he did back at the store. He explains that he’s been able to do things psychically since he was a child not knowing why or what to do about it. David returns home only to be approached by Forrester; he tells David he knows what David did and understands what he’s going through. Forrester then tells him that there are many others like him and this convinces David to go with him. Cut to David at the Neurological Research Institute being studied and tested by Morse; he reveals to David that he’s a Scanner but has never use his powers often. Morse tells David about Eph 2 and how it would help him but Forrester immediately tells him not to take it do to its deadly side effects. David is being pair off with Drak to be taught how to use his power; oh what could possibly go wrong here? Drak starts scanning David’s mind but he soon counters and scans right back ultimately wins this little sparring session. Of course Drak doesn’t take this so well at all you’ll see why later. We cut to David and Forrester at milk proceeding plant searching for the “Milk Murderer”…yeah just go with it. Who’s been poisoning milk containers with strychnine killing mostly children. David scans most of the workers’ minds until he comes across a Ralph Cheney who turns out to be the Milk Murderer. He tries to get away but David psychically stops him and is captured by Forrester. Back at the hospital Alice reads about it on the newspaper; David tells her that he found the Milk Murderer and made him confess. He then tells to her that he’s a Scanner and that he uses his Scanner powers to find the murderer. David scans Alice’s mind to…make her horny…again just go with it. Anyway this breaks out into a love scene that a nurse interrupts it but David uses his powers to have the nurse to go piss off. Cut to the home of the chief of police where he is taken control by Drak to kill himself with his own gun. OK this guy is not exactly Darryl Revok but the guy still stinks of evil. The next day back at the hospital David is summoned by Forrester to join him at city hall. At city hall Forrester convinces David to scan the Mayor (played by Dorothee Berryman) to have her announce Forrester as the new chief of police. Yeah this is not suspicious or evil at all I’m sure Forrester’s motives are good right….right….SOMEONE AGREE WITH ME! David is about to leave city hall until he’s approached by Drak; he talks about Forrester “new order” which involves using Scanners to control society. David doesn’t believe him so Drak tells him to check out the Scanners in Morse’s secret lab. After a little talk with Alice, David decides to head back to the institute to get some answers. Once there David confronts Forrester and scans him for answer, apparently what Drak said is true. A security guard enters the office but David psychically pins him down; Morse shoots David with a tranquilizer but he managed to get away.

Somehow he was able to drive from the institute all the away to his parents’ home before he passes out from the tranq dart. Cameron Vale wasn’t this resilient when he got tranq and yet David can easily shrug that off; continuity what’s that? David asked his mother if she was giving Ephemerol before he was born and why they didn’t tell him he’s a Scanner. However, it’s revealed they’re not his real parents but his adoptive parents. His real parents are what for it…..Cameron Vale and Kim Obrist who place David in care of the Kellums when he was a baby for safety sake. The Kellums are not what happen to Cameron and Kim but are aware they die. A little bit later one of Forrester men and Drak arrived at Kellums looking for David; they approached Pa Kellum about David’a whereabouts but he immediately lies. The two follow him to his house and proceed to kill him and Ma Kellum. David heard gunshots from afar run quickly back to the house only to find Pa Kellum barely alive and Ma Kellum dead. Cut to an ambulance already en route but Pa Kellum starts to die. David somehow wills his powers to keep Pa Kellums; through telepathy David learns that he has a sister who lives up north. David travels up north to Lake Washimeska where he stops at a cabin; there he finally meets his sister Julie Vale (played by Deborah Raffin). She tells him that their parents were bringing Scanners together discussing what to do with their powers. Some interested parties (Forrester and Morse) wanted to use Scanners for reasons that Cameron and Kim both opposed. So these interested parties had Cameron and Kim killed; yeah somehow this film managed to kill off one Scanner that’s so powerful that he completely inhabits another body. Julie had a fiancé named Walter who is also a Scanner, he signed up for a program to test a new drug eight years ago Eph 1. Just like the Eph 2 junkies he became addictive and disappeared. David wants to stop Forrester and Morse with her help but Julie refuses and prefers to let the humans destroy themselves. David doesn’t want that and goes back to the institute alone. David goes to the mayor’s home to warn her about Forrester and his new order; she doesn’t believe him until he displays his powers. The mayor’s fully convinced and calls the assistant director but is shot and killed by one of Forrester’s men. House is surrounded by police but David managed to escape and evades the police; he’s almost scot-free until he’s cornered by Drak. David tries to convince Drak not to fight together but to join for a better use of their powers. But given that Drak is bat-shit crazy he’s happier of being a murderous psychopath. Drak attempts to suck David’s brain dry…..ugh dude there was this guy who try that with someone else it didn’t turn out so well might wanna rethink that option. Anyway Drak is distracted by the interference of Julie allowing David to escape with her. David and Julie arrived at the institute; figuring out a way to see inside Julie teaches David a trick to psychically see what the other person sees. They use this trick on Forrester’s lackey who has arrived at the institute. Through his eyes they see the secret lab where the junkie Scanners are kept; one of whom Julie recognizes is her fiancé Walter. Forrester’s lackey approaches Morse for Julie through the lackey to psychically push Morse on to a table of Eph 2 filled syringes….OUCH! After which apparently a normal human injected with Eph 2 has deadly effects therefore Morse dies. Drak shows up and senses David in the lackey’s mind and attempts to kill him. David and Julie fight back but the lackey’s body can’t anymore of the psychic pressure to the point that you guessed it his head go KABOOM! Wow two head explosions in one Scanners film that’s gotta be a record. David and Julie rush into the institute and took out a few guards; one guard shoots Julie with a tranquilizer leaving David to rescue Walter and the other junkie Scanners. David is confronted by Drak and is getting mind crush when Walter and the rest of the junkie Scanners combine their powers with David and killed Drak. Forrester gets cornered by the press after arriving at the institute claiming he’s been using Scanners and been deliberately killing criminals to gain popularity. Forrester denies these claims but David shows up scans him to confess everything Forrester did. Forrester grabs a shotgun about to shoot David but he and Julie scan Forrester to the point that his face gets horribly disfigured. David announces to the press that Scanners mean no harm just here to help. David is united with Alice and Julie with Walter; David and Julie reached each other psychically one last time before the film ends.

My Final Verdict: This film overall may not be on par with Scanners but in fairness I give a B+ for the effort. The body horror effects are alright I wouldn’t say cheap or lazy but more like toned down just a tad. The film was made ten years after the first film and it rather shows; it does try to stay continuity with the first film as much as possible I think.

Well that’s one film done and it wasn’t too bad so let’s what the next one offers. Next time it’s Scanners III: The Takeover stay tuned.

The Film Vindicator Review: Push

Well I’ve seem to be making some kind of record reviewing films about psychics so here comes another one. Now I promise this film won’t be so boring as Speed of Thought, though I can’t promise it’ll be as good as Scanners or Dreamscape. We start off at hotel where we see a father and son in hiding from an organization called “Division”. The father Jonah (played by Joel Gretsch) tells his son Nick that someday he meets a young girl who gives him a flower he has to help her. And trust me this will come to play later. Suddenly a group of armed men arrived outside of the hotel room ready to capture the two. Jonah uses his telekinesis to help his son to escape before the armed men enter the room. Nick hides in the hallways as he watches an agent Henry Carver (played by Djimon Hounsou) leading the men to breach in the room. As they enter the room there’s sudden noise erupts from the room and then a few people are thrown out of the room. Nick continues watching Carver and his men leaving, apparently Jonah dead and is being taken to a lab. We cut to the opening credits as a young girl narrates about people with psychic abilities. These people were experimented on 1945 by the Nazi, turning those with psychic abilities into soldiers. Even after the war was over the experiments continue with many psychics dying during the experiments. Other governments around the world formed what they called “Divisions”, trying to achieve with the Nazi couldn’t. These psychics are identified in one of nine categories, Watchers (people who see the future but the outcome can be vary). Movers (other term for telekinetic), Pushers (people who can put thoughts in your head making whatever lie they come up with the truth). Bleeders (people who can emit high-pitched sonic vibrations that cause internal ruptures on the target). OK how exactly emitting high-pitched sonic vibrations is psychic related? I may have some theories but I waiting for this film to give out some and I doubt it’ll give out any. Moving on Sniffs (they’re like psychic bloodhounds they can track anyone anywhere by having a tactile access to a person’s belongings). Shifters (people who can temporarily alter the appearance of an object), Wipers (people who can erase memories). Shadows (people who can shield others from the visions of Sniff and if they’re powerful enough Watchers). Stitch (people who can psychically heal others by touch). After the narration is over we cut to ten years later at a Division lab where a woman Pusher Kira Hudson (played by Camilla Belle) is getting an injection of R-16. This drug is meant to boost a psychic’s power but end up dying after the drug is injected. However, Kira has survived the boost and is now the Division’s patient zero. Soon after the drug boost, Kira immediately recovers and escapes the lab as she snatches a syringe of R-16. Carver who witnessed the whole event orders to all Division Sniffs to track her down and recover the syringe. We cut Hong Kong where the now grown up Nick (played by Chris Evans) lives in hiding from Division. That is until he’s approached by two Division Sniffs, they asked if he knows of a woman who stole something them. Obviously Nick doesn’t know what they’re talking about and two Sniffs leave. Nick starts packing up but gets a call on the phone then a knock on the door. Nick opens the door to find out it’s a young girl, a Watcher name Cassie Holmes (played by Dakota Fanning). They head to a restaurant and Cassie tells Nick that the two of them have to find six million dollars and a woman. The same woman who the Division is looking for (Kira), Nick is skeptical about it and leaves the restaurant. Cassie tries convincing him to help her until she gets a vision of four psychics who are after them, Cassie panics and has Nick running away with her.

They’re soon confronted by the four psychics the “Pop Triad” a family of three Bleeders and one Watcher. Pop Father (played by Haruhiko Yamanouchi) who’s a Bleeder, Pop Girl (played by Xiao Lu Li) who’s a Watcher, and the Pop Boys (played by Kwan Fung Chi and Jacky Heung) who are both Bleeders. I wish I was joking on the names but according to the end credits it’s no joke. Apparently they too are looking for Kira and based on Pop Girl’s vision Nick seems to know her. But again Nick doesn’t know who they’re talking about. Cassie takes Nick’s gun and throws it at Pop Girl and Nick telekinetically pushes Pop Father and one of the Pop Boys to a wall. Nick and Cassie run away but are pursued by the Pop Boys who unleash their deadly sonic screams to stop them. One of the Pop Boys unleashes his sonic scream on Nick almost killing him. Nick telekinetically pushes Cassie away from the triad allowing her to get away. Pop Girl gets a vision where Kira is nowhere to be seen, meaning that if Nick dies they won’t find Kira. So Pop Girl tells the Pop Boy to spare Nick. Later we see Cassie using her visions to find Nick at a kind of memorial shrine where she meets a Stitch name Teresa Stowe (played by Maggie Siff) apparently sent by Cassie’s mother. She allows Teresa to heal Nick and he’s fully healed instantly, Nick awakes a few minutes later and Cassie gives him a flower. Nick then realizes that she’s the one he’s supposed to help. Cassie explains that her mother was taken away by the Division due to becoming a bit too powerful for them to control. She then tells him that the future has changed around to the point that they may die in the outcome. Cut to Kira walking around the streets on Hong Kong until she’s caught by the two Sniffs from earlier. On the way back to Carver, Kira tries to “push” one of the Sniffs wanting to use the restroom. They stop at a coffee shop and one of the Sniffs takes her to the restroom. Kira attempts to push the Sniff by looking at his eyes in the mirror, the attempt works and has him believing that he had a brother and his Sniff partner killed him. With this belief he proceeds to the front of the coffee shop and shoots his partner dead from behind. He snaps out of it, realizes what he’s done and runs back to the restroom. Kira gets the jump on him, managed to take him and leaves the coffee shop. Cut to nighttime with Nick and Cassie in a cab, Nick looks through Cassie’s sketchpad and recognizes a logo of a nightclub with a bead next to be. Nick sees the bead as a possible clue and the two proceed to the nightclub. We cut to the Sniff reporting back Carver and his Mover partner Victor Budarin (played by Neil Jackson), Carver not too happy of Kira’s escape he pushes the Sniff to put the gun in his mouth and pull the trigger. Pushing him to believe that the gun is not loaded, the Sniff complies but only to shoot himself dead. Nick and Cassie arrived at the nightclub only to meet up with Nick’s Shifter friend Hook Waters (played by Cliff Curtis). Hook used to work for Division until they let him go with a threat to never shift again, but when he did to buy his wife a gift. Only to find out his wife die in a car accident however, his wife doesn’t drive. Nick asked Hook to shift up a bead that will lead them to Kira, after which Hook points them to a Sniff Emily Hu (played by Ming-Na). We cut to her place where Nick and Cassie already arrived asking for her help. She’s hesitated at first but decides to help, pulls out a bead that apparently the Division has been spreading around to other Sniffs. She then tracks Kira down at public pier; a little bit later Nick and Cassie arrived at the pier and found Kira. However, Kira is not all that thrilled to see them as she opens fire on them with the gun she took from one of the Sniff. Nick recognizes her immediately and tries to talk her down; apparently he and Kira had a relationship until she was caught by the Division. Kira explains that the Division is after her and a case she hid away. She doesn’t know what’s in the case due to having a Wiper erasing two days of her memory. Apparently having most of your memories erase can prevent from being tracked by Watchers.

Cassie is a bit spooked by Kira after getting a vision of her, Nick and her mother dead and wants to leave her behind before things get worse. But Nick has a better idea of getting a Shadow to shield Kira from Sniffs. The three meet up with a Shadow Pinky Stein (played by Nate Mooney) and hold up at a hotel room; still not comfortable with this plan Cassie leaves the room to be by herself. Sensing a possible love scene coming up, Pinky decides to stay out in the hallway to give the Nick and Kira privacy. While the two are sucking faces Cassie is confronted by Pop Girl claiming that she and the others will die. Desperate to turn the tide, Cassie gets an adult to buy a bottle of liquor to power her ability. Yeah she explains it earlier at the nightclub that her mother would drink just to get clearer visions and was quite popular for it. I guess that makes sense but I’m just too distracted on how terrifying a drunken psychic could be. So yeah we’re treated with a drunken Dakota Fanning; at least acting to be drunk I’m hoping so. But oddly enough it does work as she gets a vision of the Pop siblings showing up with Nick and the others already long gone. Nick and the others split up to two groups; Kira goes off with Pinky while Nick goes off with Cassie. Nick decides to take the fight to Carver in order to protect Kira and the others. He asked Emily to locate Carver with the bead she has and finds him at a restaurant. Nick heads to the restaurant and confronts Carver; holding him and Victor at gunpoint telekinetically. Carver tells Nick that Kira needs another injection of R-16 otherwise she’ll die. Nick doesn’t believe him but Carver continues on describing signs of her dying such as her blood turning black. Nick gets distracted that he loses his concentration long enough for Victor to grab one of the guns and the scene breaks into an awesome telekinetic gunfight. Nick and Victor continue the gunfight telekinetically until they ran out of bullets. Victor has Nick in a hold and proceeds to telekinetically tosses Nick around like a rag doll. Victor has Nick telekinetically pinned to the ceiling and starts crushing him but Carver tells him to let Nick go and the two leave. Nick and Cassie meet up with Pinky and a now very ill Kira; she remembers the constants in the case is the syringe of R-16 she stolen. Cassie gets a vision of her holding Kira’s shoe; she inspects the shoe and finds a key as Kira suddenly slips into unconsciousness. Nick, Cassie, Pinky and now Hook show up at Emily’s place with Kira in tow. Nick gives Emily the key to find what it unlocks but Emily can’t seem to put up anything. Apparently whatever the key unlocks it’s being shade a powerful Shadow; so powerful in fact that even Cassie can’t find this place. But it does help her narrow down to a under construction building that doesn’t appear in her vision. The group tries to figure out how to find the case without Pop Girl or any Division Watchers knowing their every move. Nick comes up with a plan to give last minute instructions to the group and the last instructions he gives to himself then have his memories of the plan to be erased. Even though they’ll be “flying blind” as Hook puts it no Watcher won’t trace their movements. Kira continues to get worst leaving Nick no choice to surrender her to Carver but has promised to come after her. We cut to Kira being handed over to Carver by Pinky; we then meet up him taking Nick to a Wiper Wo Chiang (played by Paul Car). Nick ask Wo to erase two hours of memory; as Cassie and the others opened their instructions, Wo complies and erase two hours of Nick’s memory. Pop Girl loses the visions of Nick’s plan completely unable to predict what he and the others are doing. Later Hook goes to the under construction building, retrieves the case and switch the R-16 with a syringe of soy sauce. Hook then returns to Emily’s and shifts an exact appearance of the case and syringe. Cassie takes the fake case to Nick’s place and leaves; later Nick awakes and reads his instruction to return to his place. Once there he sees the case but Teresa gets the jump on him by physically disabling him. The Pop Boys show up and take off with the case; Teresa tries to question Nick on where Cassie is but he has her at telekinetic gunpoint to fix him up. The Pop Boys return to the triad with the case but SURPRISE SURPRISE the case’s a fake. At a hotel room Kira gets treated and it’s reveal to her by Carver that she’s an agent of the Division and is Carver’s partner. He explains that she volunteered for the drug boost; insisted that she’ll survive the procedure. She doesn’t fully believe him so Carver helps her to remember by pushing her. Playing the Total Recall card are we movie? OK, I’ll play your game.

Cut to Nick and Cassie going their separate ways as Pop Girl starts tracking down Cassie. Cassie wonders through the streets constantly drawing herself dead next to a tiger. She comes across a small restaurant and heads to the back area; she spots some boxes with a picture of a tiger. And that’s when Pop Girl comes from behind with a gun. She’s about to shoot Cassie until Wo comes at Pop Girl from behind erasing all of her memories. Nick calls up Carver and wants to trade Kira for the syringe; Carver agrees. Nick arrives at the hotel only to be confronted by Carver, Victor and the fully suborned Kira. She tells him that everything they together before the Division caught her never happened. It was all a push by her since they first met by the pier. Nick gets a call from Hook and gives Carver the phone; Hook tells him where the syringe is hidden. Carver and the others arrived at the under construction building; Nick is knocked unconscious after Carver admitted to him that what he said to Kira was all a push. Now say it with me FOOL YOU! Carver, Victor and Kira retrieved the case when they are confronted by the Pop Triad demanding for the syringe. Now a fight has broking out between the psychics and the triad. Victor starts force pushing most of the armed triad members; one triad member gets thrown out of the building and falls on to a trunk of a car where Nick was stashed. Nick awakes up, frees himself from the handcuffs and goes into the building. Nick arrives to the top floor as the fight continues; Kira takes control of five triad members as Victor takes on Nick. The two go into a fight of telekinetic punches from the both of them. And honestly the effects of the telekinetic punches are rather impressive. You see Legend of Chun-Li THIS IS HOW YOU DO PSYCHO POWER! Anyway the telekinetic fight continues until of one the Pop Boys show up and death scream the two. Victor takes a bamboo stick and telekinetically throws it at Pop Boy to the neck. Pop Father sees his dead son and goes ape shit death scream on Victor; killing him instantly. Nick takes out Pop Father by telekinetically dropping bamboo construction on top of him. The fight concludes with Kira’s mind controlled triad members taking out any stragglers. As Kira commands her droids to fall to their death, Nick tries to snap her out of it telling her that Carver pushed her with lies. Carver shows up beats, Nick down and pushes him to jump to his death. But somehow Nick shrugs it off, beat down Carver and grabs the syringe. OK how did Nick managed to overcome Carver’s push, when could he overcome Carver’s push? Does this mean that anyone can do this, could that Sniff who ate a bullet earlier do it? I think I know what just happened this has been another Bullshit Ex Machina. Anyway Carver pleads to Nick not to inject himself because it may kill him. Nick attempts to help Kira to remember but she shows no response; so Nick takes the injection and “dies”. Carver and Kira leaves with a few seconds later Cassie shows up and Nick is OK apparently he injected himself with soy sauce. Nick and Cassie take off with the real syringe pretty much leaving the film open for a sequel. But I have a feeling that’s not gonna happen and I feel rather disappointed about that. We cut to Carver and Kira on a private jet home; Kira looks through her purse and finds a red envelope and opens to find a picture of her and Nick at Coney Island with a message “Kill Him, See U Soon”. This breaks Carver’s push and the film ends with Kira pushing Carver to kill himself.

My Final Verdict: This film is average but wasn’t bad enough, it’s a one up to Speed of Thought. I wasn’t bored out of my mind trying to review this film so that’s something to go with. The effects were decent and again Legend of Chun-Li THIS IS HOW YOU DO PSYCHO POWER! The fight scenes were pretty good with most of the psychic powers involved. The acting for the most part is OK, none of the characters and their performances didn’t make me feel like I wanna go to sleep.

You know since I’ve already reviewed a psychic film, I’m in the mood to do more. So next time we’re diving into the Scanners sequels and spin-offs starting Scanners II: The New Order stay tuned.

The Film Vindicator Review: Kaena The Prophecy

And welcome back with part two of this Final Fantasy-esque review so let's get started.

We open in space where an alien vessel explodes at the orbit of a sap planet Astria, after the explosion most of the ship crash landed on the planet surface. The survivors of the vessel (the Vecarians) are killed off by furious sap-beings (the Selenites). As the opening credits continue we see a tree starting to grow, as the opening credit ends we cut to 600 years later where humans are living in a great tree (Axis). Axis is so massive it extends up as far as the clouds. Here we're introduced to Kaena (voiced by Kristen Dunst) whom as long as she remembers has been having dreams about a "blue sun" at the base of Axis. She and her people spend their lives collecting sap as tribute to their gods to protect however, the sap has now be a bit scarce to collect. Kaena is sitting by herself taking in to the beautiful sight of Sharkens (flying creatures) flying amongst the clouds. Until she's attack by one of the Sharkens and runs away. She continues to get away from the Sharken until she's trapped in small crevice; she bumps into a sharp metal object that seems to resemble a knife. As she tries to dig the knife out, the Sharken uses its tongue to pull her out of the crevice. She manages to get the knife out and cuts free from the tongue and the Sharken flies away. Later we cut to Kaena visiting Ilpo (voiced by Dwight Schultz) who is rather a little crazy due to visiting the "Great Oblivion". Ilpo notices the knife Kaena now owns and starts talking about being attack by a giant creature (the Marauder) and was falling but saved by a worm creature. He then tells her about seeing a man but wasn't a man and then saying something about "above is below, below is above". Kaena hears the summoning horn and heads to the village temple for the sap offering. At the temple the sap is being lifted upward to the "well of the gods" but then a quake happens. The people believe that their gods are angry but the grand-priest (voiced by Gary Martin) tells them that the gods are testing their faith and convinced them to place their lives in the hands of the gods by not moving. This idea will come back to bite them in the ass later. So the people do what he said and not move however, the Grand-Priest plays the chicken-shit hypocrite card by MOVING when a falling rubble is about to crush him. After the quake is over everyone believes that the gods save him, except for Kaena who saw him moved. Kaena confronts him arguing how her parents moved but he deems them as impure. And that their so called gods didn't save her parents when they died. The Grand-Priest tries to talk Kaena down from her blasphemy against the gods but she refuses to listen as she shows the knife she found. Grand-Priest fearing that she's provoking the gods tries to take the knife away but accidentally cuts himself as it slips from his hands. Assuming that Kaena was trying to kill him the Grand-Priest believes that she has become a danger to her people. Kaena runs out of the temple as the Grand-Priest summons the villagers to catch her but she's already made it out of the village. We cut to nightfall and Kaena is found by her friend Zehos (voiced by Tom Kenny) he believes she didn't try to kill the Grand-Priest and tries to convince her to return to village. But she refuses because she believes there's another world at the base of Axis and sets out to find it. Back at the temple the Grand-Priest is approached by one of their gods Voxem (voiced by Keith David) which turns to be one of the Selenites from the start of the film. Voxem is not all pleased with the harvest and tells the Grand-Priest to focus on the next harvest and to forget about Kaena.

A little bit later the Grand-Priest summons the villagers to harvest more sap for the gods. As that goes on the films pads out by cutting to Kaena and Zehos traveling downward of Axis. Later the harvested sap is lifted up to well of the gods as we transition from the village to some kind of Selenite lair where see a Selenite Queen (voiced by Anjelica Huston). She desperately demands more sap but Voxem replies that there may be no more with the sap drying out and the villagers can't any more. Voxem tries to persuade the Selenite Queen to consider the "fusion" but she refuses as long as this "monster" continues to steal their sap. The monster she referring to is this great spherical device that came from the Vecarian vessel 600 years ago. Apparently for the past six centuries this device has been drying Astria of its sap starving the Selenites in the process as they try to kill it. When the Axis-Dwellers appeared they've using them as slaves to harvest sap for them to survive hence the Axis-Dwellers worships the Selenites as gods. Kaena and Zehos reached an area of Axis where beyond the clouds lies the Great Oblivion, Zehos decides to return to the village while Kaena continues on. As Kaena continues downward to the Great Oblivion, she's being stalked by a Marauder which is being controlled by Voxem. He commands the Marauder to kill Kaena and the Marauder obeys. Kaena hears the Marauder and runs away as it gives chase. She then ends up running off a ledge and falls on to a branch and goes unconscious. Suddenly a worm creature in a suit of armor swoops in and carries her to safety from the Marauder. Seeing from the point of view of the Marauder, Voxem deduce that there may be a Vecarian survivor. We cut to what we can tell is an infirmary room where Kaena is being patch up by the Vecarian survivor Opaz (voiced by Richard Harris) and his worm creatures. One of the worms Gommi (voiced by Greg Proops) protest in saving Kaena but Opaz believes that she maybe special in some way. Another worm Assad (voiced by Michael McShane) tells Opaz that Kaena is different from the other village and may have spoken about a device called Vecanoi. Gommi continues to be skeptical about the whole thing until Kaena awakens and panics at the sight of her saviors. Not familiar with her new surroundings, Kaena stumble around some of the areas of a makeshift vessel built together from parts of the destroyed Vecarian ship. She reaches outside of the vessel and ends up at the top of Axis which it's in orbit of Astria and a neighboring planet Talless. That's a pretty big tree. Later Opaz explains to Kaena how he came to Axis after the Vecarian ship exploded. He was a baby place in suspended animation when the ship was destroyed and landed safely at the top of Axis. Kaena realizes that she's been climbing up the roots of Axis instead of down and that the blue sun must be at the bottom of Axis. Opaz asks her about this blue sun and she shows her a draw of it which coincidently looks similar to Selenite Queen's "monster". Opaz immediately recognize it as Vecanoi, some kind of device that contains all of the knowledge of the Vecarians. Back at the Selenite Lair the Selenite Queen makes another attempt to destroy Vecanoi, she attacks with Sindel scream but once again has no effect on Vecanoi. However, it does cause Vecanoi to suffer as it cause a quake back at Kaena's village. Kaena senses Vecanoi being attack by an evil force as if she's somehow connected to Vecanoi. Back at the village the quake starts and everyone start panicking. Oh sorry by panicking I mean staying still waiting to be crush because the Grand-Priest told to put their lives in the hands of their false gods. Kaena tells Opaz what she sensed and has a feeling that Vecanoi and Axis are linked. She then decides to return to the village to help her people, Opaz joins her and for the two to find Vecanoi.

Cut to nightfall with the Axis village destroyed and most of the people are either injured or killed. Zehos spots the Grand-Priest entering the ruined temple and proceeds to follow him. He listens in on the Grand-Priest as he prays for the gods for help but gets no response. A villager enters the temple and asked him what the gods said to him. The Grand-Priest decides to lie and tells him that the gods have offered the people sanctuary among them and for everyone to leave the village by morning. Zehos still listening is shocked that the Grand-Priest lied. We cut to Kaena, Opaz, Gommi, and Assad gearing up and head straight to the village while the remaining worms make preparations for the ship to liftoff. Back at the village the people set out to join the gods but not Zehos as he stops his little brother Essy (voiced by Tara Strong) from joining them and instead find Kaena. The two are stopped by the Grand-Priest but Zehos tells Essy to run away as he is apprehended. Kaena and the others are halfway to the village when suddenly they're attacked by the Marauder. Remembering what Ilpo said when he encountered the Marauder, Kaena tells Opaz and the others not to move. Apparently the Marauder has the visual acuteness of the T-Rex from Jurassic Park meaning it won't see them if they don't move. But Gommi being a dumbass tries to leave with Opaz but is knocked down by the Marauder. Voxem commands it to capture Opaz but is stopped by Kaena as she cuts the Marauder's antenna which actually hurts it. Marauder chases after her until eventually it's about to kill her. Kaena makes a maneuver and cuts the antenna off completely causing the Marauder's vision to become disoriented. Thrashing wildly at Kaena, the Marauder eventually falls off a cliff plummeting to its death. A little bit later Kaena and the others make it to the village completely abandon except for Ilpo and Essy. Ilpo informs Kaena that everyone has gone up to the well of the gods. Kaena, Opaz, and Gommi continue on to save the villagers while Assad is ordered to stay behind and watch over Ilpo and Essy. At the Selenite Lair Voxem convinces the female Selenites to join him against the Selenite Queen in order to preserve their race. As it’s been made apparent that the Selenite Queen has been sacrificing her own people making her stronger in order to destroy Vecanoi. Kaena and the others make it to the bottom of Axis and continue on. Opaz comes clean to Kaena with his plan to remove Vecanoi, confessing that Vecanoi and Axis are not just connected but they’re the same. Revealing that Vecanoi created Axis and if Vecanoi is remove then Axis will die. Kaena refuses let her people and her world to die so she leaves Opaz and Gommi to rescue her people. Kaena arrives at the entrance to the Selenite Lair but is soon captured and imprisoned with her people. Soon after Kaena and her people are rescued gommi and everyone escapes back to the village while Kaena heads straight to Vecanoi to protect Opaz. We cut to Opaz attempting to make contact with Vecanoi but it doesn’t respond, he’s then attacked by the Selenite Queen. She demands him to kill Vecanoi but Opaz replies that Vecanoi won’t respond to him so with that she kills him. This gives Voxem and the female Selenites to fuse with the Queen, impregnating her with new Selenite offsprings. Kaena soon arrives to Vecanoi and finds Opaz dead when suddenly Vecanoi response to her presents. The Selenite Queen reappears about to give birth as Kaena attacks her. Her attacks are no good and is knocked out; Vecanoi makes contact to Kaena and connects to her. The Selenite Queen continues attacking Vecanoi but is eventually consumed by the offspring womb and dies. And I’m assuming the offsprings died as well…again assuming. Zehos and Gommi show up to attend to Kaena and Opaz. We cut to from what I can describe is Kaena mentally inside Vecanoi, she hears Opaz’s voice telling that his people are no more. He was the last of his kind while the others died 600 years ago. With only Vecanoi that survived it created a new reservoir of life, Axis so that humans can exist. Vecanoi created the people of Axis but more importantly it created Kaena. Vecanoi chose her to carry on the memory of the Vecarians, chosen to lead her people. Vecanoi disconnects from Kaena and starts a reaction that triggers Axis to grow, the very top of Axis reaches to Tallees. Kaena, Zehos, and Gommi got out of the Selenite Lair and make it back to the village. The film ends with Kaena guiding her people to a new world to begin again, to begin a better life. Free to learn, free to think for themselves.

My Final Verdict: This film has that Hero’s Journey theme going on at least that’s what I think anyway. You have Kaena who is not too thrilled with this life of harvesting and has this feeling that there’s something out there beyond Axis. This curiosity somewhat guides her to an adventure of discovering something bigger than what she realized. And when that adventure is over she now has developed a completely new perspective, a higher sense of strength and heart, and new friends that helped her along the way. Now I’m not going way too deep into this but for those out there who watches this film may understand of what I’m saying. The animation is rather decent despite a few flaws but not exactly a big of a deal. The story feels somewhat natural as it progresses throughout the film. The character interaction is pretty good they feel like they belong in the story. Overall it’s an enjoyable film. This was Richard Harris’s last film before he passed away back in 2002. You may remember him as the original actor who portrayed Professor Dumbledore from the first two Harry Potter films.

Well I’ve seem to be done here so stay tuned next time as we dive into Push.