Photo by: 20th Century Fox
Science-fiction and comic books have long been the purview of the classic “nerd.” Everyone knew at least one of those kids growing up who were good with computers and could reenact any scene from the original “Star Wars” trilogy at a whim. Bullying them seemed only natural.
It is these same kids who grow up to create new science-fiction films and movies. The protagonist is often a geeky kid who discovers tremendous power and inevitably uses it to take revenge on those that bullied him. “Jumper” is a prime example of this.
Based on the 2002 novel by Steven Gould, “Jumper” follows the story of David Rice (Hayden Christiansen), a geeky kid with a broken family and a tendency to get bullied. After an unfortunate encounter with an icy river, David discovers he has the power to teleport to any place he has been to or seen. As is only natural, he immediately employs this power for his own gain and robs a bank.
The plot proceeds to jump (no pun intended) forward eight years. David is now a successful bank robber who teleports across the world on a variety of self-indulgent adventures. However, things go bad when he is tracked down by a mysterious man named Roland (Samuel L. Jackson), a righteous badass with a shock prod and a problem
with dudes who teleport.
David escapes though, and apparently unperturbed by the fact that he was nearly killed, hooks up with his high school sweetheart Millie (Rachel Bilson), takes her to Rome and is surprised when more righteous thugs with shock prods come after him.
From here on out, the movie is about David and his new teleporting
friend Griffin (Jamie Bell) battling the shock prod wielding thugs, who are apparently a religious order known as the Paladins.
Plot is obviously not a big draw for this movie. It is your standard “boy gets superpowers” tale, with the singular twist being that he doesn’t start fighting evil until he absolutely has to.
The plot jumps forward randomly, expecting the viewer to fill in the gaps where character development might go all by their lonesome, and it focuses on the novelty of being able to teleport anywhere in the world at will.
Still, it does not actually cross the threshold into being a “bad” movie. True, it does leap about nonsensically and expect the audience to have faith in the things that happen on screen make sense in context, but if you are going to this movie expecting brilliant storytelling, then you were not paying attention to the previews.
The effects, while minimal when compared to other recent blockbusters, are pretty cool to watch. The action is decent, and it is hard to complain about a movie where Samuel L. Jackson beats Hayden Christiansen upside the head with an electric stick.
The characters do not take themselves too seriously or try to be any deeper than they actually are. Christiansen, after proving himself incapable of portraying anything more complex than an angst-ridden teen in his most recent movies, fits the part better than ever in “Jumper.” Jackson’s role is not particularly complicated either, but he does a superlative job in swaggering through the film, being “fly,” as the kids these days are saying.
This movie will not be winning any awards or earning any accolades from critics. If its financial success in the box office keeps up, you can probably expect a sequel. “Jumper” is solid science-fiction that will not keep you up at night puzzling through the story.
If you are in the market for uncomplicated amusement, you should give it a go.
