Ever since BOURNE IDENTITY I have always been a Doug Liman fan and so I decided to head over and watch his latest film JUMPER, starring Hayden Christiensen; I figured that a talented director like Liman could make even a horrible actor like Christiensen good by the sheer "force" of skill
boy was I wrong.
The plot is about a young man named David Rice who happens to discover that he has a teleportation superpower which allows him to travel instantaneously anywhere around the world. The first twenty minutes of the film focuses on David as an even younger nobody (played by Max Theriot) in high school as he puts up with a bully and trying to hitch up with his crush as he accidentally discovers his superpower. Now if this sounds like Raimi's SPIDERMAN it pretty much is- except that you can obviously tell its been done before and Raimi had a better script and more talented actors to work with. The plot then shifts to an older David doing whatever he pleases until he realizes that not only are there other jumpers like him, there also happens to be a group of fanatics (led by Samuel L Jackson in white bleached hair, no less) that are out to kill him and his kind.
So where did this film go wrong? Well, there could have been a number of intriguing possibilities with regards to storytelling about a group of people who can teleport but unfortunately the movie focuses on Hayden Christiensen- his character is pretty much a spoiled brat who only uses his power to indulge in very basic stuff (chicks, money and TVs) and then when confronted by his enemies he makes a lot of mistakes that makes it easy for them to consistently find him. The other characters, including Jaime Bell as a vengeful and witty teleporter, are barely given anything as far as background for their characters which doesn't endear them much to the audience with regards to sympathy. Samuel L Jackson is likewise wasted as a leader of the Paladins, a cult of normal people who feel that it is their religious duty to kill jumpers- there are no revelations as to what motivates him or even how the whole conflict between jumpers and paladins got started in the first place. By the end of the movie there are at least three separate unresolved plot lines.
Rumor has it that Eminem was offered the lead role but turned it down. In light of this turd I applaud him for making a smart move.
The plot is about a young man named David Rice who happens to discover that he has a teleportation superpower which allows him to travel instantaneously anywhere around the world. The first twenty minutes of the film focuses on David as an even younger nobody (played by Max Theriot) in high school as he puts up with a bully and trying to hitch up with his crush as he accidentally discovers his superpower. Now if this sounds like Raimi's SPIDERMAN it pretty much is- except that you can obviously tell its been done before and Raimi had a better script and more talented actors to work with. The plot then shifts to an older David doing whatever he pleases until he realizes that not only are there other jumpers like him, there also happens to be a group of fanatics (led by Samuel L Jackson in white bleached hair, no less) that are out to kill him and his kind.
So where did this film go wrong? Well, there could have been a number of intriguing possibilities with regards to storytelling about a group of people who can teleport but unfortunately the movie focuses on Hayden Christiensen- his character is pretty much a spoiled brat who only uses his power to indulge in very basic stuff (chicks, money and TVs) and then when confronted by his enemies he makes a lot of mistakes that makes it easy for them to consistently find him. The other characters, including Jaime Bell as a vengeful and witty teleporter, are barely given anything as far as background for their characters which doesn't endear them much to the audience with regards to sympathy. Samuel L Jackson is likewise wasted as a leader of the Paladins, a cult of normal people who feel that it is their religious duty to kill jumpers- there are no revelations as to what motivates him or even how the whole conflict between jumpers and paladins got started in the first place. By the end of the movie there are at least three separate unresolved plot lines.
Rumor has it that Eminem was offered the lead role but turned it down. In light of this turd I applaud him for making a smart move.