Genre: Action/Sci-Fi/Adventure
Director: Doug Liman
Cast: Hayden Christensen, Samuel L. Jackson, Rachel Bilson, Jamie Bell, Max Thieriot, Shawn Roberts, AnnaSophia Robb
RunTime: 1 hr 28 mins
Released By: 20th Century Fox
Rating: PG (Action Violence)
Official Website: http://www.jumperthemovie.com

Opening Day: 14 February 2008

Synopsis:

David Rice always believed he was perfectly ordinary --- until he accidentally discovered he possessed a "talent" that is nothing less than extraordinary. David is a “JUMPER” who can teleport himself to the streets of New York and Tokyo, the ruins of Rome, and the summit of Mt. Everest. He can see twenty sunsets in one night, whisk his girlfriend around the world in the blink of an eye, and grab millions of dollars in a matter of minutes. But David’s global odyssey takes a deadly turn when finds himself relentlessly pursued by a secret organization sworn to kill Jumpers. Forming an uneasy alliance with another Jumper, David becomes a key player in a war that has been raging for thousands of years. As these world-changing events unfold, David begins to discover the secrets and mythology behind his incredible ability.

Short Movie Review:

Jumper makes teleportation look extremely attractive and could easily top anyone’s list of “mutant power to get” after watching this movie. However, the focus here was to dress this movie up as sexy as possible and the plotting wise was dumb down a few notches. It ended like a TV series pilot episode or a first movie introduction to what could possibly be a franchise of sequels / trilogy, with very little climatic finale to speak off.

Long Movie Review:

Ever since Nightcrawler did the “bamf bamf” teleportation in X-Men 2, it’s paved the way on how cool teleportation could look on big screen. Jumping ahead to few years later, Jumper came along and utilize the cool teleportation concept except it does not have the constrain that the predecessor got. Now anywhere in the world is just a flick of the imagination.

Rome, Fiji Islands, New York, London and Tokyo. How cool is it? Just imagine, if you read about a happening club that just open in Los Angeles and all you have to do is look at the picture and wish you are there. There’s no need for the airport hassle or passport and you can return back in a blink of the eye after you are done with the party. Just how cool is it?

That’s what Jumper is all about, showing you the fantasy of having such unconstraint teleportation could be like and the lifestyle that one can achieve with it. It’s glamorous and could simply make one drool with envy. Jumper with it’s nifty editing shows how to travel around the world with style. It’s also took the effort to reveal the baggage that this jumper(s) (folks who can teleport) could bring about during their travel and it helped to exemplify the studious continuity planning process that this film went through.

And of course, it’s not a travel documentary so a little plot and tension had to be added to add more spice in this gorgeous space traveling movie.

That’s where the praises for this movie will come to an end..

For every inch that the movie took the effort to make teleportation look eye-catching, it just took one more inch to dumb down the plot. Even when one believes in the possibility of teleportation or a bunch of folks (the NSA) hunting down these jumper(s), it’s frustrating to see how these folks were using their power in the movie.

Especially when the lead character David (played by Hayden Christensen) who was hunted by certain folks that had revealed to him that they had a way of tracking him down. What does he do next? Leave an even more obvious trail for them to find him and even tried to rekindle a high school romance when mean folks pursuing him.

Yup. That’s right. In these formulaic Hollywood Blockbusters, romance is always forcefully and recklessly inserted into the storyline. Perhaps this movie catered to the teenagers who should have no problem relating adolescent testosterone level overdrive where teenagers would just shut their brains and do stupid things in the name of love. But old cynical folks like this reviewer; it was just amazingly brainless for David character to put his love ones in harm ways at the worst time possible.

Now would you be able to relate or feel for characters that either so reckless or unintelligent?

Plus there’s the manner that these jumpers were being chased by the NSA. It makes one wonder, if they have such incredible ability, won’t it be easier for these jumpers to ambush the NSA than vice versa? There were moments when these jumpers could easily use a gun and it will be so much more effective than what they came up with. But then again, it won’t be that flashy or sexy and that kind of logical thinking would ruin this movie’s image.

Last but not least, the way this film is handled felt that it was a pilot episode for an upcoming TV series or a possible first of a franchise to come. There are enough mysterious characters introduced to branch out into a series or even more movies to come and characters / events that just didn’t come to a complete resolution at the end of this movie. It’s finale didn’t feel climatic enough and it went with a whimper instead of a bang. If a follow up is expected, it won’t be that bad but for a standalone movie; it just made this movie a whole lot less impressive.

Movie Rating:

(Jumper is like a blonde joke … attractive, sexy but ultimately dumb)

Review by Richard Lim Jr