AML Movie Review: “Jumper”

Jumper ended up being pretty much what I knew deep down inside it probably would be. But I was too excited to care so I left work and galloped to the theater near my house.

The opening line to Jumper begins with a narration by Hayden Christensen talking about what she’s done so far that day. It involved things like eating a picnic on the Sphinx, surfing in Bali, drinking coffee in some European country and oh yeah, watching the final quarter of Game 4 of the NBA Finals.

All before lunch.

I know this may seem super lame, but when was the last time a Game 4 of an NBA Finals was played BEFORE LUNCH?

Nitpicking at that line may seem a bit too much, but it just ended up being indicative of the rest of the movie.
Jumper was so close, yet something was just off. That bad first line seemed to trickle down to the rest of the film.

The idea and premise of the story was awesome and I’d like to read Steven Gould’s novels upon which Jumper is based on so I might get the real story of what happened.

Christensen stars as David Rice, a kid who learns one day that he can teleport. It happens the first time when he gets trapped under some ice after chasing a snow globe he tried to give to a young Millie, playing by Rachel Bilson.

With an abusive father at home, Rice decides to “jump” himself out of his current situation and into a life of freedom and excitement. He robs banks, stocks up on money and does whatever he wants.

What he doesn’t realize is that a secret, ancient organization called the Paladin like to hunt down and kill jumpers. He soon comes to understand he’s not the only one in the world who can teleport.

Samuel L. Jackson is a top Paladin, although we’re not sure if he’s the leader or not. He’s his usual good self here, although you kind of feel like Jackson is getting a bit too used to roles like this.

The special effects and visuals in the film are stupendous. I really, really enjoyed the jumping from place to place, the way teleporting works and the rules it has. For instance, a jumper needs to study a location and know it before he can jump there. He can do this via a photo, but the main law is that he cannot teleport anywhere that he doesn’t see first.

It also appears that jumping to a place in a photo the first time causes some serious damage around the landing site.

Here is the downside: If the Paladin finds out where your landing sites are…watch out.

There are also rules between jumpers…like teleporting leaves an invisible tear in the air that another jumper can follow through.

The action sequences, the battles, the chase scenes, the science behind it seems pretty sweet.

The potential was there for an awesome mythology but it didn’t quite make it.

If you liked the way The Matrix started, with Neo learning his gifts and discovering his calling, then you’ll be bummed that Jumper couldn’t find the same magic. And it surprises me considering that it was directed by Doug Liman, who was behind The Bourne Ultimatum and Mr. and Mrs. Smith.

The choice of Christensen was a poor one. You need your lead actor in a movie like this to be engaging and dynamic, and neither describe poor Hayden. He tries here, but he just can’t pull off what he needs to in order to really bring Rice to life.

It’s sad really. There is a great superhero story here, but it was all told in a matter-of-fact style and it was nothing special. The discoveries are predictable and the Matrix-like moment we see towards the end was no surprise.

The biggest shocker is that the movie is MADE for a sequel. The ending essentially lays the groundwork for the next film.

Was that good or bad? Probably bad if this film fails miserably and judging from the 18% on Rotten Tomatoes that it’s getting…it could do just that.

I wont lie and say I didn’t have fun in this movie, but I’m the kind of guy who loves to see new ideas in visual effects shown in movies, so that part was great to behold.

But otherwise…it just didn’t live up to what I hoped it could have been. It was just an average film.

AML Rating: C+