Jumper: Stuck In Place Written By Jerry Dennis

“Whatever you say, Jack. You are the master race.”
-- Connor MacLeod from Highlander

''Only God should have the power to be in all places at all times!''
-- Roland from Jumper


"The movie I end up with is the movie I aspired to make."
The above quote is attributed to director, Doug Liman. A statement like that can cut both ways. Doug Liman’s Jumper simply does not work. This is a shame because the film starts off with real potential. Jumper seems like the perfect film for our times. In an age of really short attention spans and skimming, Jumper should deliver the goods. Sadly, it does not even come close; I expect a lot from director Doug Liman. The film seems tailor made for his hyper slick style films such as Go, The Bourne Identity and Mr. And Mrs. Smith. I would include Swingers, but that always seemed like a Jon Favreau film. Still, the seeds of Liman’s directorial style can be seen in parts of that brilliant film. Go is the true birth of Doug Liman’s style. It is a gem that holds up very well. The above four films are films that any director would have been proud to have made. Sadly, Jumper seems like a lazy film; I cannot imagine anyone aspiring to make such a vapid film.

“Anywhere is possible” is the tagline for the film. I have to admit this is a great tagline. It sums up what the film’s ambitions are. David Rice (Hayden Christensen) discovers early in the film that he has the ability to teleport himself anywhere in the world. This special ability allows him to pass through wormholes or something along those lines. It is an interesting premise, especially in the film’s first act. We meet David as a teenager in Ann Arbor, Michigan living with his Dad, William Rice (Michael Rooker). He is not a popular kid; he keeps to himself and he is picked on by the school bully. He goes to give Millie (AnnaSophia Robb), a snow globe outside the school. Mark (Jesse James) takes the snow globe and throws it onto a frozen river. The young David, played by Max Thieriot, walks on to the ice covered river to retrieve the globe. He falls through the ice. It is here where we see David teleport for the first time. He ends up in the public library. He also brings a lot of water with him; I hope the library has flood insurance. The teleportation is an excellent plot device as we learn from David’s voice over narration. He leaves home to finally see the world with his new found power. He does not have much of home. His mother left home when he was five and his father is not much of parent. It is every teenagers dream to want to go out and see the world-- to escape the banalities and cruelties of junior high school and high school.

The teleportation power provides David with a life free from consequence. He uses this power to live a very comfortable lifestyle. The power gives him the ability to get into a bank’s vault and walk away with lots of money. He is able to have apartments in a dozen cities all over the world. For David, being a Jumper is the ultimate form of freedom. He can do anything he likes and go wherever he wants. As an audience, we accept David’s powers without question because we have been conditioned with so much fantasy and science fiction over the years. This is the status quo and that is a good thing. The shame is that Doug Liman and screenwriters, David S. Goyer, Jim Uhls and Simon Kinberg do not have any fun with it. David S. Goyer seems to be dealing with outtakes from the last film he directed, The Invisible. He has written so many good screenplays; it is odd that he does not have more to give to the story. Jim Uhls was able to adapt Chuck Palahniuk’s Fight Club very well for the big screen. Was there not much to Steven Gould’s novel?

Hayden Christensen has been trying very hard to keep busy in the wake of his lukewarm portrayal of Anakin Skywalker in the Star Wars Prequel trilogy. He did his best work in between Attack Of The Clones and Revenge Of The Sith, playing the lying journalist, Stephen Glass in Shattered Glass. Last year he played thinly veiled Bob Dylan in Factory Girl; he also played a heart transplant patient who suffers from "anesthetic awareness" in Awake. As David, there is not much depth to him. Poor writing and mediocre acting will do that to any character. The character is not that interesting to begin with because his abilities get old very quickly. When David goes back home to Ann Arbor, he takes the girl, Millie, now played by Rachel Bilson, to Rome. Sadly, there is not much to her character either or anyone that David meets for that matter.

The film takes on a different tone when Samuel L. Jackson’s Roland enters the film. He has been tracking David for a long time. It turns out that Roland is one of a group called Paladins. This group’s main purpose is to hunt the Jumpers down and exterminate them. The Paladins hate the Jumpers’ freedom. If you ask me, it seems that Jackson just wants a rematch between Mace Windu and Anakin Skywalker from Revenge Of The Sith. For every role that Jackson shines in such films as Black Snake Moan, The Caveman’s Valentine or Eve’s Bayou, he then seems to take any role that comes his way.

It turns out that there has been a centuries old war brewing between Jumpers and Paladins. This part of the film reminded me of the original Highlander film and its inferior sequels. Christensen seems as lifeless and uninspiring in this film as he did in Awake. It is what happened to Christopher Lambert after Subway, Greystoke: The Legend Of Tarzan Of The Apes and the first Highlander film. He showed a lot of promise early on in those films, but that promise evaporated over the years in straight to video fare and lesser films such as The Hunted, Gun Men and Fortress.

Jumper does have some life when we encounter a fellow Jumper, Griffin, played by Jamie Bell. Jamie Bell is the only one having fun with the film. Griffin is very animated and does not seem to take any of this very seriously. His rebellious nature is the only thing keeping the film afloat. When he is onscreen, there is a glimmer of the hope that the movie may be decent. Bell was such a revelation in Billy Elliot. He built on the power of that performance by creating memorable characters in Undertow, The Chumscrubber, Flags Of Our Fathers and King Kong. Sadly, Christensen and Jackson do not bring anything to their parts. Diane Lane is in the film too. She plays David’s mother in the film. She, like Lena Olin in Awake, gets the short end of the stick playing Hayden Christensen’s mother. I have no idea what to make of Diane Lane's character in the film. Between this and Untracable, I think Diane Lane needs to fire her agent.

After all is said and done, Jumper left me feeling cheated. For a film that is all about skipping the boring parts in life, there are a lot of dull patches in the film. Doug Liman has become such a master of kinetic energy in his films; it is odd that Jumper lacks any energy and life. The action never feels that urgent and neither does the thin plot. The movie may be all about getting some place in a hurry without any hassle with plenty of beautiful locations. Yet, when the closing credits come on, you may wonder if you went anywhere at all. I hope they do not expect us to sit through a sequel. A Jumper sequel could make Highlander II: The Quickening seem like a good idea in retrospect.