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.
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