Remember what Joker says at the end of Dark Knight about how madness is like gravity, and all it takes is one push. Well homage is like gravity too; all it takes is one push and something that’s supposed to be a helpful tool becomes an unstoppable force yanking you down towards your doom. Push is basically X-Men or The Matrix, but without black leather and trench coats. Or, if you like, it’s akin to TV’s Heroes, but without the convoluted storytelling and thin air of unjustified pretension. Basically, it’s got a bit of every other story about people with super-powers, stitched together, and set in Hong Kong for what I can only presume is some pretty serious tax exemptions.

Chris Evans plays Nick and proves that when it comes to super-heroism, he’s no good without being the foil to a guy dressed as a talking rock. Nick is a punk kid that owes everyone. His sole claim to fame is that he’s a “Mover,” meaning someone that has telekinesis. In this world gone mad, people with extraordinary abilities have been walking among us - undetected - since the end of the Second World War. Naturally the Nazis were behind the first attempt to create “psychic soldiers,” but now every government in the world is in on it. (Including the US, who seems to have some pretty kosher relations with China in order to have agents operating within their borders with seeming impunity.)

So along with “Movers” you have “Pushers” (telepaths), “Watchers” (precognitives), “Stitches” (quick healers) and “Shadows” (people who can hide things from all the above). If all this seems a little complicated don’t worry, Cassie (Dakota Fanning) explains it all right off the bat, which leaves you free to enjoy the deep character work of the actors, which makes Wuthering Heights look like Tiny Talent Time. Yes, that was sarcasm, because like any person with super-powers, Nick has seemingly spent his whole life not perfecting them, because I’m sure it would have taken valuable time away from shooting craps in the street like a 1930s newsboy.

One thing I’ll say about last year’s Jumper - which I believe finished dead last in my ranking of 2008’s films - but it had a main character that actually had a handle on his abilities and a willingness to use and abuse them. All this pinning about, “Ooh, I have powers. Pity me,” is becoming incredibly irksome. If I had powers, of course I’d practice using them for some kind of exploitation, rather than sitting around in what can generously be described as a crap hole, while tempting fate with Chinese hustlers.

And there’s always some shadowy division of the government that’s trying to control/manipulate/turn the people with powers into some kind of super-soldier regiment. That or they’re rounding them up because superheroes are a threat to national security or humanity or both. With as much unoriginality as possible, the evil government goons in Push are called The Division and they’re lead by Djimon Hounsou being all big and bad. But what their motivation is or what their ultimate goals are tend to be questions as ambiguous as any of the time travel mumbo jumbo on Lost. You see, when you’re the bad guys, you have to be clear and have an obvious end game in mind. Otherwise, the entire thing’s a quagmire where for some reason only a few people are chased by the government while others get to live out their crap hole lives in relative peace.

But in places amidst the mess and chaos there are hints of something interesting afoot. The idea that the Watchers have to draw out their visions in order to fully understand them is an interesting one, but better than that is Cassie’s case where in the question is: what do you do in this situation if your art skills are lacking? Cliff Curtis appears as a “Shifter,” a person that can briefly make one object look like the other to the naked eye; passing off a dollar bill for a hundred, and things to that effect. Curtis is a cool customer with a 30s huckster’s vibe, and hanging around with him was infinitely more interesting than watching the bland and blander romance develop between Evans and Camilla Belle. Making wooden acting from a mediocre script into something more palatable? Now that’s a super-power worth having.