Sci-fi action gets a wan workout in Push, an engagingly photographed but dramatically inert Hong Kong-set thriller in which various groups with paranormal abilities do battle over the future of a formula that heightens extra-cognitive powers. Lacking the kinetic, push-through certitude to unclog its muddled narrative, the film is hampered by a poorly delineated backdrop of intrigue which posits that the immediate future can be constantly changed by the tiniest actions, or even knowing about it. This creates a landscape in which no character action seems to have lasting consequence, either within the story, or emotionally for the audience.

Nick Gant (Chris Evans) is a second-generation telekinetic hiding in Hong Kong, trying to live off the grid and make a living through dice games. Fulfilling a prophecy made by his father before his death, 13-year-old Cassie Holmes (Dakota Fanning) shows up at Nick’s apartment, enlisting his help in locating an important suitcase. Fleeing some Chinese assassins, their on-the-fly investigatory work leads them to Kira Hudson (Camilla Belle), Nick’s ex-girlfriend and an on-the-run “pusher” — someone with skills so advanced they can plant a thought indistinguishable from reality in a subject’s mind — who is the only telepath to have ever survived drug trial testing by “the Division,” a shadowy government group who conducts human research.

Trying desperately to bring Kira in is a Chinese family gang, as well as Henry Carver (Djimon Hounsou), a Division agent also responsible for the death of Nick’s father. Nick, Cassie and Kira hook up with some other, differently abled paranormal loafers and try to stay alive and ahead of these groups, while plotting to find the suitcase with drugs that will… save Kira? Allow them to expose the Division? The intricate final plan — in which Nick writes sealed letters to each of his cohorts, and then wipes his memory of the act — creates a circumstance by which anything can happen, untethered to any emotional reality.

The most compelling thing about Push is its setting. Director Paul McGuigan (Lucky Number Slevin) shot the film entirely on location, which affords it a fresh look and feel. David Bourla’s screenplay, though, is a jumbled mess of narrative clichés and poor execution, at once terribly conventional and needlessly complex, like it’s setting the table for a sprawling TV series. By trying to establish personal connections between characters rather than clearly establishing the rules of its tele-psychic play, Push actually raises far more questions than it ever convincingly answers. If Nick is out of practice and not very good with his telekinetic gifts in the beginning of the movie, what triggers his sudden ability to control weapons and stop bullets? If the drug-enhanced Kira is the powerful prototype for a new breed of telekinetic soldiers, why is she still susceptible to Carver’s “pushes”? If the Division is a secret American governmental organization, why would they work at all with potential rivals in the Chinese, rather than merely dispatch their own minions? If “watchers” like Cassie predict the future based on intent, why can’t one see the aforementioned plan to mask intent through sealed letters as it’s being hatched? These questions, and many more, occupy one’s mind more than actual events unfolding on screen. For the full original review, from Screen International, click here. (Summit Entertainment, PG-13, 111 minutes)

The cinematic equivalent of Guns N’ Roses’ Chinese Democracy — a project delayed so long that many began to doubt its actual existence — Fanboys is about a group of passionate Star Wars geeks who set off on a road trip to try to see the latest film in the series before anyone else. It’s also kind of like discovering a mangled, half-eaten tin of your roommate’s chocolate crème pie in the refrigerator; it’s not wholly formed or at all pretty-looking, and you know it’s perhaps not good for you, yet you somewhat enjoy it all the same.

It’s 1999 and, several years removed from high school, young Eric Bottler (Sam Huntington) is the only one of his peer set who’s matured a bit, mostly the result of a job at his father’s car dealership. Two of his friends — Windows (Jay Baruchel) and Hutch (Balls of Fury‘s Dan Fogler, noticeably older than the rest of the characters) — kill time in hourly-rate fashion at a comic book store, along with Zoe (Kristen Bell, breathing as much energy as she can into the “spunky female” role). When they tell Eric that his semi-estranged ex-best bud Linus (Chris Marquette) has inoperable cancer, Eric revives an old scheme hatched when they were all much younger — to drive across the country, break into George Lucas’ Skywalker Ranch, and steal and screen a print of the hotly anticipated forthcoming prequel.

Fanboys was originally conceived and scripted at the height of Phantom Menace mania in 1998, by Ernest Cline. A decade later, however, Adam Goldberg also nets a screenwriting credit, and a handful of re-shot sequences by Steven Brill allegedly abut those of originating, credited director Kyle Newman, who shot the film a couple years ago. Not a fan of the whole terminal illness plotline, executive producer Harvey Weinstein is also reported to have tinkered heavily with a cut of the movie, which seems borne out by liberally sprinkled ADR asides.

Naturally, owing to its multiple chefs, there’s considerable schizophrenia with respect to the movie’s tone. Some of this surfaces right out of the gate, when an opening credit crawl that mimics the Star Wars series concludes with an iPhone joke, then yields to a party sequence set to Chumbawamba’s “Tubthumper,” an ultra-specific demarcation of era if ever there was one. “Wait,” one thinks, “is this going to be an honest period piece comedy or just a referential free-for-all hung loosely upon this conceit?”

Some of both, it turns out. Early on, the movie’s banter helps it seem a bit smarter (Of Mice and Men and Picasso are both amusingly evoked), and the white-hot fervor of fandom is honestly dissected in the form of a story-strand feud between Star Wars and Star Trek fans that is funny, if a bit broadly played. Before long, though, Fanboys reveals itself a peddler of desultory set pieces (a Full Monty-type male striptease, a hallucinatory drug sequence that could be nipped from an Oliver Stone flick, a half-sketched plot device involving geek-web icon Harry Knowles, as played by Ethan Suplee). And since the characters never really discuss Linus’ fate, Fanboys misses a chance to blossom into something more emotionally rooted; instead it’s just a slapstick romp. Indeed, it’s not until the end of the movie that it becomes fully apparent that Linus’ illness wasn’t actually just a fib told to get the reticent Eric on the road.

So Fanboys is in no way, shape or form a great accomplishment of filmmaking. But if there’s a saving grace to the entire enterprise, it’s the easy rapport between the lead actors, as well as the fact that it’s even more smartly cast in hindsight. (Danny McBride, Will Forte and Craig Robinson all have bit parts, Seth Rogen plays two characters to surprisingly amusing effect, and a few more star cameos figure prominently into the proceedings.) That great pedigree, and the force (pun embraced) of its loosey-goosey personality is ultimately enough to help Fanboys just scrape by with a marginal, qualified recommendation… at least for those in its fanboy target demo. (MGM/The Weinstein Company, PG-13, 90 minutes)