Jumper - Movie Review

Saw Jumper this weekend. The movie is eighty –eight minutes long.

The movie is about a boy, David, who at age fifteen learns he can teleport. This begins his life of traveling around the world and fighting those who try to stop him. That’s just about the whole movie – my shortest summary ever.

I loved it for the first seventy-five minutes; before I realized this was the whole movie there was no way they’d add a plot, climax and resolution in thirteen minutes. The whole eighty-eight minutes was what another action movie would fit into twenty maybe thirty minutes top. Needless to say its slow. So let’s discuss the good first. Jumper is packed with great fight scenes and graphics. The idea behind a jumper is a great one. I mean who wouldn’t want the ability to pop around anywhere in the world with the blink of an eye. But one of the things with this jumping ability that bothered me is the fact they just jump wherever they are at the time. It’s not a great way to not be discovered. You think they’d pull a Superman and wait until they’re in a phone booth to pop out. Hayden Christensen(Anakin) plays David but Jamie Bell defiantly shows him up. Plus that accent doesn’t hurt anything. Rachel Bison is so-so. At least she’s nice to look at. If you do go watch the movie pay attention and see if you can find the hidden lightsaber, it’s like a seek and find.

If I had come right home and written this review on Saturday or Sunday I think the review would have been much more positive. After having more time and one boring four hour meeting to think about it I’m not so sure about my opinion anymore. The movie keeps you interested because things blow up and people disappear and reappear on awesome places like the Sphinx. But really I’m not sure what the plot was because nothing was resolved in the end. In fact I’m not quite sure what the point of the movie was unless it was a set up for a sequel.

It’s not like its XMen with some epic battle between good and evil. I’m not even sure we’re really told which side is good or bad, besides the obvious – cool ability usually means good. The story line is really under played. Guy has cool power, guy loves girl, girl gets kidnapped, guy fights dude, guy saves girl. That’s about what you’re going to get with Jumper. Trust me I didn’t tell you anything you didn’t already know if you’ve seen an action movie in the last five years. The previews also talk about a war, but I think a war takes more than two people fighting another side.

After watching the movie and discussing it with my fellow movie goers it was discussed that quite possibly the reason the movie was so weak is because they plan to make it into a television show. This could be a great reason for the lack of story line or closure. I guess we’ll have to wait and see if a series does come to be. Of course if it does become a television show it’s going to have to have one hell of a budget, as well as a long list of sight locations.

So anyway this was probably the most worthless review I’ve ever written and that’s saying something because most of my reviews aren’t very helpful. (I don’t want to include spoilers and get hate mail over it). I can’t tell you how I feel because I’m still deciding. I won’t be spending the money to buy this movie when it comes out but I’m not mad that I spent time seeing it either. So if you want to see Jumper go, otherwise don’t. Helpful aren’t I?

“You Live in a cave…” “It’s a lair!”