Jumper

  • 2008-02-13
  • By Talis Saule Archdeacon

Jumping to conclusions: Blurring the lines between good and evil, these new heros teleport onto the big screen.

Director: Doug Liman

Over the past year there seems to have been a bit of a lull in the super-hero movie genre. After "X-Men," "The Fantastic Four" and "Spider-man," things slowed down. "Jumper" is not exactly a super-hero movie, but it comes close enough to fit the bill.
The movie contains the cheesy scenes and obvious foreshadowing characteristic of superhero flicks, but director Doug Limen does a superb job of making the protagonists good, bad and confused all at the same time.

David Rice (Hayden Christensen) is a 15-year-old kid struggling to control his mysterious ability to teleport himself and anything he touches. As soon as he manages to get some semblance of control over his power, he runs away from home to become a successful bank robber.
Fast forward a few years. David is living in New York City and spends his days teleporting around the world to steal huge sums of money while deliberately ignoring people he sees on TV whom he could easily save. One day he narrowly survives an encounter with Roland Cox, the leader of a group of so-called "paladins" who have devoted their lives to hunting down and killing "jumpers" like Rice.
After learning he is being hunted down by a psychopath, the first thing Rice does is unexpectedly revisit his high school crush, Millie (Rachel Bilson). Though she hasn't seen him for years, he convinces her to go on an extended romantic holiday to Rome with him.

There Rice meets fellow jumper Griffin (Jamie Bell), and together they do battle with two paladins in the basement of the Coliseum. After killing the two lackeys, Griffin and Rice eventually (after many Marvel Comics references) decide to join forces to attempt to destroy Roland. Millie is inevitably drawn into the conflict against her wishes.

Though the plot is interesting, and the characters are fantastic, there are a number of unanswered questions which prevent the film from being really great. For example, why is it that when he teleports in the middle of a crowded city 's sometimes with a car or city bus in tow 's nobody seems to notice? Why does Rice only go back for the girl after he discovers he is being hunted by a maniac? If Roland is hunting the jumpers because they "all turn bad in the end," why does his group go on murderous rampages far worse than any lone jumper could manage?

Opens Feb. 15 in Estonia, Feb. 22 in Latvia and Feb. 29 in Lithuania
 

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