The Right Way to See JUMPER - For Free

I freely admit that I had wanted to see Jumper for awhile, since I first saw the trailer. The premise looked intriguing but I fully expected mediocre at best. Turns out that it hit a bit south of mediocre, and that is not good news for star Hayden Christenson, who desperately needs a hit if he is to ever break the Star Wars stigma, you know, the one that relegated Mark Hamil to voice acting (where he does an admittedly super job!), Carrie Fisher to bit roles (Drop Dead Fred, Austin Powers, Charlie's Angels) and Anthony Daniels to a career as a gay robot. Only Harrison Ford emerged from the trilogy a star.

Jumper's problems can be blamed on any number of culprits (bad writing, paper-thin plot, Sam Jackson not dropping a single f-bomb, even for good measure) but bad acting never helps. Christenson, while always trying to sound cool with his awkward delivery, just cannot seem to break out of a very wooden style of "acting". It plagued two Star Wars films (a follow-up to Jake Lloyd's debacle in "the Menace") and now has carried over into his non-Star Wars work. Shattered Glass aside, Hayden is not getting it done. I do not see this changing any time soon.

To be fair, you cannot solely blame Christenson, however. Director Doug Liman should know better - the man directed the first Bourne film and produced the sequels for Pete's sake!!! For him not to realize how poor the writing, casting and plot to Jumper were is irresponsible at best and shameful at worst. This movie is nothing less than an interesting concept handled in the poorest manner possible. And while it wasn't a complete catastrophe, it certainly wasn't good and it certainly wasn't worth paying for. As luck would have it, I didn't. Complimentary theater passes are truly a great thing.

So back to the basics - the central character David (Christenson) discovers he has the ability to "jump" from location to location by sheer force of will. Being a teen with a drunkard father and no mother, he decided to "jump" away from home and start robbing banks so that he can live it up by traveling the globe. Years later he returns home to find his childhood crush (Rachel Bilson) so that he can wisk her off to Rome and win her heart. However, things soon go bad as he runs into other jumpers and "paladins" (led by Jackson), those whose sole reason for existence is to hunt down and kill jumpers, because apparently only God can have the ability to be anywhere at anytime... or so says Sam Jackson, who apparently wanted to take some time off from serious roles... or at least entertaining ones. For a bad-ass, he sure wasn't; at least this time he didn't get his ass killed by Hayden (see Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith).

Granted Jumper had some interesting sequences, but as I've already said it really was a good concept wasted due to complete incompetence, or in the case of Liman and writer David Goyer, dereliction of duty, but we'll get to that later. For example, the jumper power is never explained even a little bit- they have apparently always existed and their war with the paladins has raged just as long (since when did this become Highlander?). I also have to take away points due to a really lame attempt to play the "historical conspiracy" card when one of the characters tells David that the witch hunts and Inquisition were actually the paladins executing their brand of justice on the jumpers. Please.... But apparently jumpers are inherently evil despite the fact that, aside from bank robbing, jumpers don't appear to be serial killers or bent on global domination of any sort. They have the ability to teleport. Ooooohhhh..... EVIL!!!

I must also subtract points because Rachel Bilson's character is perhaps the weakest female lead of a very young 2008 and quite possibly 2009 and 2010 to boot. She seriously needs to pick better roles and David Goyer certainly knows how to write better material. I seem to recall an amazing film from 2005 that he worked on called BATMAN BEGINS! Bilson's character, Millie, was one of the most ignorant, naive and shallow characters I've seen in a long time. At times I just wanted to punch her in the face as she continued to follow and trust a blatantly shady and dishonest David. I guess we can just write her indiscretions off due to be being smitten and besot by a handsome young man who has whisked her off to Rome, the city of her dreams. Hello? McFly?! Anybody home?!!! But it can't be all Bilson's fault. I mean she can only read the lines that are written for her.

Ultimately, nothing is really revealed in Jumper and also nothing is really resolved. In fact, the door was left wide open for a sequel. Anyone stupid enough to pick this up where it left off deserves a flop. As for Hayden Christenson... he is about ready to jump into unemployment and obscurity. 3/10

Before I wrap this review up, I cannot help but wonder aloud how Liman and Goyer could cook up such a piece of garbage, especially in collaboration. As already noted, they have Batman Begins, the Bourne films and Dark City in their combined resume, so how did they go so wrong? I mean, I think the concept of Jumper had potential which is why I was originally interested. But it was a disaster with only fleeting moments of entertainment sprinkled throughout. What a joke!