Monday, May 26, 2008

Jumper

Jumper aspires to be The Matrix. Fifteen minutes in, though, and it's clear the flick nowhere close; it's all style, and very little substance.

David Rice, played through most of the movie by Hayden Christensen, has the ability to transport himself instantly across space to any place he can visualize. That's a cool premise, and certainly enough for director Doug Liman to work with to present the audience with an above average sci-fi flick. The addition of Samuel Jackson as the mysterious leader of a group of people who hunt and kill jumpers is inspired casting.

Jackson is so good at being bad he can make a plain-load of snakes look scary!

But Jumper tries too hard to be special. Prior to the release of the flick, talk was already going on about a trilogy. Maybe because of that, the flick is chock-full of plots: Rice's mother is a member of the mysterious Paladins, the historical predators of jumpers; his girlfriend heads into danger with him without hesitation (even though she hasn't seen Rice in eight years); Rice's father is a ne'er-do-well, a poor father and even worse human being; other jumpers watch nervously as Rice brings the Paladins closer to killing them all off.

That's too much plot for any movie. Particularly an ambitious movie that doesn't have the substance to meet it's own expectations.

3 comments:

Buzzardbilly said...

I rented Untraceable this weekend. They should've called it Unwatchable. It starts with kitten torture. Really, there's no good road that's gonna lead from that beginning.

jedijawa said...

I wondered about both of those movies "Jumper" and "Untraceable". Both looked like interesting ideas but I wondered about the execution. Luckily, I missed both of them in the theaters and may do the same on Netflix.

Unknown said...

Was I the only one waiting for Jackson to yell out "I'm tired of these motherfuckin' jumpers on this motherfuckin' realm"?

It could have been more than it was - there was a decent amount of unfulfilled potential - but it was watcheable, I thought.