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a tepid teleportation tale

Director Doug Liman has had more hits than misses. The guy gave us great movies like Swingers and the Bourne flicks, but is also responsible for the greatly hyped dud Mr. & Mrs. Smith. His latest film, Jumper, puts another check in the “miss” category despite an extremely promising premise.
David Rice (Hayden Christensen) has a secret. When he was in high school he discovered he has the ability to teleport anywhere in the world. The strange superpower saved him from bullies and his abusive father (Michael Rooker), and later made him rich beyond his wildest dreams by allowing him to teleport into any bank vault and fill his pockets without ever opening a door. His life is pretty sweet until Roland Cox (Samuel L. Jackson) finds out what he can do.
You see, Roland is a member of the Paladins, a shadowy organization that thinks “Jumpers” are an abomination in the eyes of God and should be destroyed. Naturally, being on the Paladin radar is a problem for David, so he splits his cushy New York digs and heads back home to Ann Arbor where he reconnects with his childhood sweetheart Millie (Rachel Bilson). The two get along famously but it’s not long until Roland and his crew are hot on their trail. Luckily David meets another Jumper named Griffin (Jamie Bell) who knows how to handle those pesky Paladins. The two team up to put an end to the chase and make life safe for themselves and their loved ones.
Jumper is based on Steven Gould’s 1992 sci-fi novel of the same name. Production on the film was pretty rocky from the very beginning. It took three different writers to come up with the final screenplay and they went through a number of casting changes before settling on Christensen and Bilson for the leads. One crew member was killed while shooting in Toronto, another injured. Christensen himself was hospitalized while doing his own stunts at the insistence of Liman. Is there a Jumper curse? If the critical reception is any indication then yes- the film scored a dismal 15% on RottenTomatoes.com. It did, however, get some decent numbers during its opening weekend, earning $33.8 million and securing the number one spot at the box office.
Though universally panned by most, I couldn’t help but be intrigued by Jumper. The story is riddled with flaws and plot holes, but the concept is so fun and fresh you almost want to give it a pass. Almost. Unfortunately you can’t tell a story like this in 88 minutes. You can’t set up a centuries-old war between two mythic groups no one has ever heard of in the time it takes to cook a frozen lasagna. It seems like the filmmakers knew that and set Jumper up to be the first in a series of films. The problem with that game plan is no one cares enough about what happens to these characters to warrant spending another ten bucks to continue the story. It’s just not compelling enough and that miscalculation is the film’s ultimate downfall.
What Jumper did do is make me want to read the book it’s based on. The premise is a good one and apparently Gould’s novel does a terrific job of fleshing it out. It’s not often that a movie drives people to hit the library so that’s certainly a redeeming quality. The film also has some great special effects and nice locations, especially a rare look inside the Colosseum in Rome. While the acting from our leads left a lot to be desired what with Christensen’s stiff delivery and Bilson’s perpetual deer-in-the-headlights stare, Jamie Bell nailed his role and Jackson is just right as a comic book villain come to life.
Jumper would have really shined as a TV series or even a mini-series, but its mythology is too complicated for a single feature film. Too many loose ends and not enough character development plagued the project and bad casting choices put the final nail in the coffin. If you’re interested in this tepid teleportation tale, I urge you to wait for the DVD. Better yet, save yourself the trouble and pick up the novel. I wish I had.