Jumper | Review

Those used to villains and heroes changing forms will notice with Steven Gould’s novel to screen adaptation that the shape-shifting occurs with the background décor instead. Sporting a superhero-narrative likeliness with big budget special effect excessiveness, Jumper is unfortunately incapacitated by a lack of coherency in the screenplay, a high jinks of green-screened pit stops around the globe that will become extremely redundant if there are parts II and III and the sort of mind-bogglingly long chase sequences that former indie maverick Doug Liman now specializes in.

Scripted by a trio of writers, (David Goyer penned the original draft with rewrites from Jim Uhls and Simon Kinberg, this initially has the chromosomes of a Peter Parker’s journey or an X-Men template – teenager thankfully finds out that he is gifted, learns how to use his powers with a Harry Houdini’s invincibility and then finds that someone wants to decimate him. Here Samuel L. Jackson fills that role as the film’s antagonist who is clearly labeled by his silver hairdo (any other color would be less futuristic). Among the throwaway faces, we have a Rachel Bilson (who as a teen thinks she assists in the death of a her potential puppy love partner to later no bother confronting him because the money-packing twenty something is better than a bar job) and Jamie Bell, also known as a jumper (worry not moviegoers, jumpers in this film don’t stalk middle points on high level bridges) fills the comedic void that only occurs when the lead player breaks through world time zones a little like the Kool-Aid Man mascot made a mess out of people’s brick homes.

The adventure sci-fi misfire spends so much time on the run, that it literally teleports itself away from a coherent storyline. The only story that the screenwriters provide is that Hayden Christensen’s character comes from a broken home and his protective mother rather keep the door shut from possible relations. Since producers are already plotting out a second adventure, the short run time helps explain why this is anemically laid out tale shuns itself from Diane Lane’s character – thus proves hurtful to volume I, and somewhere in there might be a more particularly interesting mythology behind this whole teleport notion – something we don’t find in this one. You’d think that there are a dozen films about teleporting a year with the way this movie treats that experience.

As witnessed in recent roles, Christensen has difficulty playing the lead in the fantasy/action genre. Not helped by the actor’s lack of charisma, he is only able to channel the bottled-up youth look and can’t deliver the dramatic or selfish cues of his character. A complete miscast for the franchise many will concur.

Jumper is a visual effects factory, but many might wonder how many more times we want to see this character zip from the north to South Pole destinations – it simply won’t have the legs to stand up as a trio of films.

Rating 1 stars