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Ever since Fox taunted the press last fall with a barrage of postcards to promote Jumper, I’ve been intrigued by the new movie by director Doug Liman (otherwise known as the guy who made the only Bourne movie that didn’t make me sick). After all, who isn’t just the slightest bit fascinated by the thought of having coffee with friends in Europe in the morning and hitting the beach in Hawaii in the afternoon? But while this new teleporting adventure is definitely imaginative, devoted fans of Liman’s work (including Mr. and Mrs. Smith and The Bourne Identity), might be a bit disappointed by the director’s latest project.
Jumper stars the ever-bland Hayden Christensen as David Rice, an average guy from Michigan who, as a teenager (played by Max Thieriot), discovered that he had the ability to teleport himself anywhere in the world at any time. Fearing how people would react—and tired of being the target of the school bully—fifteen-year-old David teleported himself into a new life in New York.
Eight years later, David is on top of the world (often literally). Money isn’t an issue—thanks to his ability to teleport in and out of bank vaults. His life is just one big adventure. And while all of David’s jumping around from one place to another doesn’t necessarily give the film a solid plot, it does make for an entertaining (and often visually exciting) film.
But just when everything seems to be going David’s way—after he’s even managed to reconnect with Millie (Rachel Bilson), the love of his young life—he discovers that he’s not the only one with this unusual ability. There’s also a group of people, called Paladins, whose only mission is to track Jumpers and bring an end to their kind.
Jumper doesn’t offer the same kind of thrilling story and non-stop action that you might expect from Liman. In fact, for the first half of the film, it’s mostly just a bunch of jumping around from place to place. It’s fun to watch, but it’s not necessarily electrifying. Just when you start to get tired of watching Christensen teleport, though, the action finally begins to build—and that’s when things get interesting.
Though the film doesn’t really have much of a story, its greatest faults are in the casting—not the writing. That’s not to say that Samuel L. Jackson isn’t remarkable (as expected) as the Jumper-hunting Roland. He is, however, shamefully underused. The movie could have used a little more of Sam L.’s energy, since Christensen seems to suck the life out of his role. Christensen makes it difficult to get into the excitement of the story, since he appears to be incapable of expressing any emotion, other than some kind of sullen, post-teenage angst. Fortunately, though, Jamie Bell manages to liven up the latter half of the movie as David’s clever, laid-back counterpart, Griffin.
With a better lead actor (and perhaps a stronger plot), Jumper could have been a great action movie. Instead of the thrill-ride that I expected, however, it’s a lightly entertaining adventure with some cool scenery and a couple of exciting scenes in the end. Don’t go out of your way to see it, but if you’ve got nothing better to do after lunch on the Sphinx, pop into the theater and check it out.
