Glossy crap!

During the 85 minutes (approximately) that occupy the running time of Jumper, director Doug Liman degrades his once promising career. Liman earned his chops when he helmed the successful first instalment of the Bourne series, The Bourne Identity. You may also remember Liman behind the camera of other films such as Mr. & Mrs. Smith.
Liman's Jumper is pure science fiction action tosh that borders on the superhero genre. In early 2008, the film crept out and died due to the appallingly negative feedback from both critics and audiences alike. Not to mention the meagre box office earnage. This film is a lesson on how to create a disaster from a fairly promising premise. It fails to reach its lofty objectives due to the shoddy screenplay, gross miscasting and the lack of brains. Consequently the film is a mound of senseless garbage with fancy polishing.

David Rice (Christensen) discovers as a child that he possesses an incredibly unique ability: he can teleport. David learns of the special gift as a teenager when he nearly drowned. Following this occurrence he disappeared and let even his closest buddies believe that he was dead, including his father. David moves to the city where he makes his fortune by utilising his ability to rob banks. He begins living in desolation, using his teleporting abilities and stolen funds to create a luxurious existence for himself and live life to the fullest. David is soon entangled in a war that has raged for centuries between the jumpers and the Paladins that have sworn to kill them.

Jumper is an irretrievably flawed, stupid sci-fi action movie. Why is the film so flawed, I hear you think? Well, it's difficult to decide where to start, really. First of all, the plot is extremely thin. It's difficult to outline the plot because it's hard to establish the difference between a plot and a concept when it comes to this film. There's no sense of direction...it's a disjointed succession of worthless dialogue with action attached. It also never explains anything. Obviously the filmmakers were relying on a sequel being a definite thing, because here there's little explication to be found.

The character of David Rice is an awful protagonist. He's self-indulgent, arrogant, narcissistic and selfish. He cares only for himself and wants to dispatch the Paladins in order to continue living life to the fullest. He even breaks laws to impress his female friend! David always remains an arrogant, selfish prick. By the end he doesn't learn anything and never develops an ounce of human compassion. David's hedonistic personality makes him therefore a hero we don't want to root for. This is further exemplified when David is watching the news near the beginning of the movie. He sees people trapped in a flood who will surely die. Does he do anything to prevent people suffering horrible deaths in a watery grave? No, instead he continues being egotistical. The "hero" approach is probably too clichéd anyway, but it again begs the question of why should we empathise with David and hope he survives? Besides, the filmmakers take a different, far more clichéd approach...the cringe-worthy love story.

Driving the film is a dreadfully constructed screenplay. One would expect more from this trio of writers (one of which worked on Fight Club!). The central problem is the mounds of plot holes (of the "Why don't they just?" category) and inconsistencies. For plot holes, there are things like Jamie Bell's Griffin continually doing brainless things. If he didn't want David to pursue him, why search for David in the first place? To warn him of the Paladins? Due to David's stifled knowledge of the Paladins, it's quite commonsensical that David would want to seek his help which Griffin is not prepared to offer. Griffin also never tells David of several things (like the machines that the Paladins use to open the wormholes the jumpers leave), yet David's lack of knowledge infuriates Griffin when David's wormhole leads the Paladins straight to their secret lair. There are countless opportunities for the Paladins to use this machine of theirs as well, but they only decide to use it as the film nears its conclusion as one more surprise is necessary.

Furthermore, there are too many loose ends. Like we see David bring his wounded father into the hospital...after a five second display of emotionality, the scene ends and David leaves. We never hear anything further regarding David's father. Other loose ends include David's old school friend whom he leaves rotting in prison. Inconsistencies continually plague the frame as well. For example the craters the jumpers ostensibly leave that only rarely occur. When they do, the damage appears to repair itself quite quickly as well. Alrighty...

Then there's also the lack of brains in the script as well. The several different locations around the world are there for the sake of being there. David pursues Griffin to various global locations in one sequence. Firstly, if David can easily trace him then what's the point in fleeing anyway? Secondly, why not transport to a certain location on the planet and actually hide?! Instead of obeying logic, the filmmakers continually travel around the world. Worse yet, there is precious little variety. We see them in Egypt and Japan quite frequently and almost no-where else...even when David had a wall full of jump sites.

The acting is terribly below par as well. Hayden Christensen is most familiar as Anakin Skywalker in two of the Star Wars prequels. Once again he demonstrates his inability to portray a leading character. His monotonous accent and contrived facial expressions are truly atrocious. Everything about his performance is dull and dreary.
Samuel L. Jackson turns in his worst performance to date. Back in the days of Die Hard - With a Vengeance his foul-mouthed attitude and snappy lines made him a household name. Now he's tame, has no reason for what he's doing, and that white hair is just creepy.
Rachel Bilson is there solely for her looks. She brings no intensity to her character at all. Worse yet, there is zero chemistry between her and Christensen. Their love story is boring, trite and clichéd.
Jamie Bell appears to be the only actor who's trying. He offers an energetic portrayal of a character who's granted some clever dialogue to work with. He provides the film with its only moments of solid acting and quality script lines. Bell is among the film's redeeming features. If only his character of Griffin was the film's central hero. It's a shame that he's so underused. Another underused actress who shows potential is Kristen Stewart. Blink and you'll miss her!

The special effects are at least top notch. There's no denying that the teleporting and the various global locations looks spectacular despite not much reasoning behind them. Jumper also mildly succeeds in showing the jumpers teleporting from place to place. On that note, the subtle bank robberies are clever despite the further illogical facets behind them (why would there be a bathroom right next to the bank's central vault for customers to see?). The action is in tragically short supply unfortunately. The first half of the roughly 85-minute duration is dedicated to establishing David's selfish persona. Things then become terribly rushed. Instituting David's character is also fairly disappointing. The film opens with an embarrassingly bad narration courtesy of Christensen. This narration points out the bleeding obvious and Christensen's voice is like nails against a chalkboard.

Apparently director Doug Liman wanted Jumper to be the first entry in a new franchise that was to be the Bourne series of the superhero genre. With the film being only marginally successful, a sequel is probably never going to happen. And if it does, people will be far less inclined to watch it (however it must be noted that at the time of this review being written, a sequel has been announced but nothing much has happened in the film's development thus far). Jumper had a wonderfully hopeful concept and showed great potential behind the camera. Even with that in mind they still managed to screw it up. Apart from the impressive special effects there isn't a single remarkable thing to be noted about this movie. It's a mindless glossy science fiction action/adventure film. It's also so incredibly dumb, stupid, ridiculous and vapid that it numbs your brain.

3.6/10