I’m going to be honest: I saw this movie because I had absolutely no clue what to think about it based on the previews and clips I’d seen pre-release. Hayden Christenson generally sucks as an actor (as we can all remember from the new Star Wars trilogy, where his acting should have been labeled a disaster), Samuel L. Jackson is known for doing great and terrible movies, and the whole idea behind the movie sounded like it would make a great sci-fi book but would generally fall flat on its face in movie form. But then again, maybe the book did, too; I wouldn’t know because I haven’t had time to read anything except philosophy for the past 3 years now.
The main plot to this flick is that, when caught in a near death situation, the main character, David Rice (Christenson), discovers he has the ability to teleport (or “jump”). Since his life generally sucks at that point, he decides to run away and hone his newfound powers so that he can use them to gallivant around the world. He ends up making a living by robbing banks, which is pretty easy because he can “jump” through all their security and straight into the safe and other secure parts of the bank. But, as he is running around having fun, we are introduced to Roland Cox (Jackson), the head of a Paladin organization who hunts down and kills these “jumpers” because they deem it a power too much for humankind to possess. After barely escaping Roland’s first attempt on his life, David meets another jumper, Griffin, who is fighting back. Faced with the decision to stay on the run or fight back, David decides to fight. After all, if he just kept running the movie would be pretty lame.
Then again, it ended up being pretty lame, anyway. The romantic storyline to the movie seems forced and unreal, which might just be the lack of acting talent because, as we all should know from Star Wars Episode 2, Hayden Christenson isn’t that convincing in lovey-dovey scenes. Now, if a good romantic scene were supposed to put you to sleep or make you cringe, then Christenson has it down… but for some reason, I doubt that’s what love scenes are supposed to be like. That’s just a gut feeling though.
The other downside of the movie is that the action scenes were so fast and sporadic that it was hard to follow them. The jumpers just kept “jumping” all over the place. The Paladin’s just keep shooting and running all around trying to catch them. And both groups occasionally stop to say a fairly amusing, although clichéd line to break up the action a bit; pretty lame if you ask me… and I’m guessing that you are, since you’re reading my review.
But, I do have to admit that the special effects were done really well and that the main idea behind Jumper was solid. I’ve found myself wondering just how awesome of an ability jumping would be since I left the theater. Usually I would have rather thought about how cool super healing and adamantium claws would be; or how sweet it would be to charge up any item, making it an explosive weapon just by touching it; but teleportation seems a little cooler than it once did. So, for being entertaining enough to sit through, and for making me reconsider my mutant dreams, I’ll at least say that the film is fun. Just don’t expect any real substance when watching it.