Search - Jumper (Special Edition) on DVD

Great Movie!!

Jason A. Wade | 09/25/2008

(4 out of 5 stars)

"If you like science fiction and adventure, this is a must get movie. I love movies in that genre so i basically had to go see it...and i wasnt disappointed. I really liked the movie and had few ways to think of how they could have made it better. This movie will definetly have you amazed and thinking..."damn, i wonder if they will ever have the ability to really do this??" A must have blu-ray to add to your collection!"

Great idea squandered

The Movie Man | Maywood, New Jersey USA | 09/22/2008

(2 out of 5 stars)

"What if an average guy from Ann Arbor, Michigan discovers at age 15 that he has the ability to travel instantaneously to other locations? How would he handle that ability? Those questions are answered in "Jumper," directed by Doug Liman.
"Jumper" is based on an intriguing premise: a person has the ability to teleport himself at will to anywhere in the world, whether it be just a few feet away in his apartment or thousands of miles across the globe. Sounds like a quality belonging to a spandex-clad superhero more than an average Joe. After all, Superman essentially has that ability because of his super-speed, and Superman dates back to 1938.
David Rice (Hayden Christensen) realizes he has this "jumping" ability when he almost drowns. In a split second, he finds himself in the midst of bookshelves in the Ann Arbor Public Library along with enough water to destroy a third of the library's book collection.
With a cartoonishly mean father (Michael Rooker) and more than his share of teen angst, David decides to make for the big city, his teleportation talent the road to a whole new life. But this invisible zipping from space to place doesn't come easily, as David practices teleportation in Central Park, slamming into trees while learning to fine tune his ability.
The beginning of "Jumper" is very intriguing, and the film promises an enjoyable ride. But so much goes wrong along the way, the movie crumbles before our eyes. Let's take the character of David. Though he's not a traditional superhero, we've become conditioned to expect that a lad lucky enough to have unusual strengths will use them for good. What does David do? He breaks into bank vaults, steals huge sums of money, sets himself up in luxury apartments all over the world, picnics atop the Sphinx, surfboards in Fiji, hangs out, literally, from Big Ben in London, and picks up girls all over the world. He's not exactly bettering mankind or combating evil.
The element of conflict that drives the film comes in the character of Roland (Samuel L. Jackson), a Paladin. The Paladins are Jumper hunters. Why? Roland makes a brief comment that only God should have the right to be omnipresent. Huh? Is that it? Yep. For half the movie, David jumps from place to place to stay ahead of the Paladins, who want to capture him because of pseudo-religious self-righteousness.
Christensen is a likable actor and he succeeds in making us care about his David, even though the character is a shallow, pretty-boy hedonist. I suppose the good will he engendered as young Anakin Skywalker has spilled over to this less interesting character.
Jackson mails in this performance. His appearance with
snow-white hair is a lot of fun, though his character is humorless. We've seen the same from this actor before: intense close-ups, slow, threatening delivery of dialogue, and attitude a mile wide. His Paladin is a warrior, which allows for action and violence. But wouldn't it be interesting if Jackson played the role more low-key, using psychological terror rather than physical force?
The film shines when we're introduced to Griffin (Jamie Bell, "Billy Elliot"), a fellow Jumper David meets in Rome's Coliseum. Griffin serves as the expositional mouthpiece of the film, informing David (and the audience) that David isn't the only Jumper in the world and providing back story about the Paladins' ongoing persecution of Jumpers. Bell has enormous energy and a streetwise toughness that contrasts sharply with Cristensen's laid-back style. Whenever Bell is on screen, he commands it.
The dutiful love interest of sorts is provided by the lovely Anna-Sophia Robb as Millie, an adolescent crush from David's hometown, whom he looks up years later and invites to accompany him to Rome. What happened to "Want to have a cup of coffee?" As written, the role of Millie is meant to be serviceable eye candy, and Millie is swept up in the usual machinations of "things beyond her control," becoming more involved in the plot than she should be.
A trilogy of writers are responsible for the final screenplay of "Jumpers," which looks as if huge chunks are missing. Things move too swiftly, even for a movie about a guy who can scoot from city to city in a millisecond. Viewers are entitled to enough time to get to know the characters so that they care about what happens to them. A quick dissolve, for instance, shows David going from 15 to 20-something, still living in the same dumpy hotel he came to years before. Why is he still there when the cash he's stolen can surely allow him to afford better digs? And why are the teleportation scenes so inconsistent? Sometimes David whisks to another location with just a rush of air and a swooshing sound. Other times, there is serious damage to concrete and floor tiles.
The locations are interesting, but seem to be there more as scenic backdrops to the story than as integral parts of it. With the exception of the Rome sequence, those taking place in Cairo, Tokyo, Prague, and Mexico are intended to be impressive to audiences that have seen all these places many times over on screen. They no longer carry the same impact.
Rated PG-13, "Jumper" uses an interesting premise, but takes all the wrong turns as it unfolds its tale, offering a movie experience long on special effects, short on meaty story and gripping characters."