Here is one of the cleverest, most promising ideas I have ever encountered. The setup is this. Hong Kong is a refuge for mental mutants. Some can erase memories. Some can read minds and "see the future" by knowing your intent and others can hide the world from these folks. Some can place false memories, thus changing your behavior.
This is clearly designed to allow the story to be shuffled and obscured in some complex way. It is something that could have given the next "Memento" except ever so much more complex. Characters that can plant old stories, erase stories or see what happens in the story, all fighting one another. There are three teams, each with these skills, and plenty of free agents used by more than one team.
My gosh, it is an amazing idea. The title comes from the folks who can "push" a story into your mind. Cool, huh? One of the plot devices has the hero write bits of the story in letters to the characters as a script, to be read only at each last minute, and then he has his own knowledge of the script erased. This way, the "watchers" cannot anticipate. The watchers, by the way are indicated as us the audience in more than one way. The way they gather and report what they see is by drawing images.
But it fails because they did not rely on any of this. Instead, I can imagine the funders having three people somewhere. One says that for this to work it has to be a cute girl under the accidental wing of a stud hero, like "Leon." So we get Dakota Fanning and that sort of buddy movie.
Another bozo with influence says that, okay but whatever you do it has to have action like "X-men." So we get other sorts of mutants, who can through objects around, and shout loud enough to kill. The climax, of course, has all sorts of fights and massive effects along these lines.
A third impresario insists that the thing needs to be a thriller. So we have that McGuffin, the suitcase that everyone wants. Its importance and uniqueness is extreme. All the plot revolves around getting this.
With all this meddling, it is no wonder the thing is a mess. The three competing on-screen teams are rendered by three competing off-screen pushers.
Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.
This is clearly designed to allow the story to be shuffled and obscured in some complex way. It is something that could have given the next "Memento" except ever so much more complex. Characters that can plant old stories, erase stories or see what happens in the story, all fighting one another. There are three teams, each with these skills, and plenty of free agents used by more than one team.
My gosh, it is an amazing idea. The title comes from the folks who can "push" a story into your mind. Cool, huh? One of the plot devices has the hero write bits of the story in letters to the characters as a script, to be read only at each last minute, and then he has his own knowledge of the script erased. This way, the "watchers" cannot anticipate. The watchers, by the way are indicated as us the audience in more than one way. The way they gather and report what they see is by drawing images.
But it fails because they did not rely on any of this. Instead, I can imagine the funders having three people somewhere. One says that for this to work it has to be a cute girl under the accidental wing of a stud hero, like "Leon." So we get Dakota Fanning and that sort of buddy movie.
Another bozo with influence says that, okay but whatever you do it has to have action like "X-men." So we get other sorts of mutants, who can through objects around, and shout loud enough to kill. The climax, of course, has all sorts of fights and massive effects along these lines.
A third impresario insists that the thing needs to be a thriller. So we have that McGuffin, the suitcase that everyone wants. Its importance and uniqueness is extreme. All the plot revolves around getting this.
With all this meddling, it is no wonder the thing is a mess. The three competing on-screen teams are rendered by three competing off-screen pushers.
Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.