Jumper

Jumper

Jumper practically begs to be damned with faint praise, a textbook example of “not as bad as I thought it would be”. Essentially it is an X-Men movie, albeit one that instead of featuring a multitude of mutant talents instead focuses on one, and one that would normally be a peripheral feature exhibited by one of the kids n the background of a filler scene.
Props to the film makers that banked on Hayden Christiansen post Star Wars. Would the negative fallout from those prequels turn audiences off or would the massive exposure help attract fans to his new film? It’s a precarious balance but whatever the case Hayden is fine in what is an undemanding teen blockbuster, his petulant pretty boy image fitting the role of the selfish main character who embraces new found teleportation powers to leave his small town life behind to live as an international playboy.
After a few set-up scenes we rejoin Hayden’s David Rice just as he finds out that there is a secret order of religious zealots (led by Sam Jackson after another visit to the blind barber) who hunt and kill all the teleporters they can find. Their supposed millennia-long vendetta is apparently fuelled only by the belief that only god should be able to be in two places at the once, and it’s this simplicity that’s emblematic of the film’s core problems. After years of sampling the best of what the world has to offer David is apparently unable to find love anywhere, instead fixated on his first crush back home. Jamie Bell’s fellow teleporter Griffin is cartoonish, all leather-jacketed sneer as the experienced jumper who helps David learn about the secret war and also rescue his love interest after a kidnapping.
The film is also blatantly intended as a franchise; the story is left with a multitude of loose strings, the conflict unresolved as a battle won whilst the war still rages, Jackson’s Roland defeated but not stopped despite his unwavering desire to murder jumpers, and intrigue involving David’s mother revealed at the close of the movie but unexplored.
Ultimately Jumper can only leave you unsatisfied regardless of how low you’ve set your expectations.