While notionally based on real-life government experiments into psychic warfare, this is essentially just another put-upon mutants movie – in this case, characterised by an attempt to mix realism with superpowers that backfires. For the sake of clarity – a quality this film is painfully short on – the plot can be summarised as: government agency captures citizens with special powers, seeks to increase those powers by testing risky new drug; one woman survives the experiment, escapes with syringeful of the drug; clairvoyant girl teams up with telekinetic man in attempt to find syringe while evading capture by either the agency or similarly psychically-gifted evil gang.

Push eschews the convent­ional fantasticality of superhero movies, but has nothing to offer in its place. Despite its claims to be based in fact, to expect a believable exploration of psi is perhaps unfair – but it shouldn’t be unrealistic to ask for charisma­tic protagonists or emotional drama. The blandness of the lead characters – thrown into relief by the hectic, seedy vitality of their location, Hong Kong – is fatal: while bad stuff might happen if they fail, they are chiefly out to save themselves and those close to them, rather than rescue Earth from certain doom at the hands of a villainous mastermind, so it would help if you gave a toss about them; it might also give you a reason to bother engaging with the plot’s mysteries. The central love affair, in particular, has about as much spark as a match struck at the bottom of the ocean, although this might not be entirely the actors’ fault: the camera is much more interested in leching over the sassy, provocatively mini-skirted 13-year-old clairvoyant, particularly when she gets sprawlingly drunk.

Mostly, however, Push feels like it wants to be a TV series: tonally it would be better suited to a small-screen treatment, and its world needs enough space to flesh it out, its mysteries the leisure to unfold and twist and be discussed around the water cooler. As a film, it suff­ers from uneven pacing, and, after an incredibly long-seeming 111 minutes, the audience deserves a more conclusive resolution. Short on thrills and emotional pull, in the end, despite all its frenetic clutter, Push just feels empty.