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Jumper 7 out of 10
Running time: 1:28 MPAA rating: PG-13 for sequences of intense action violence, some language and brief sexuality. Peruvian rating: Mayores de 14
Cast: Hayden Christensen, Jamie Bell, Rachel Bilson, Samuel L. Jackson, Diane Lane, Michael Rooker, AnnaSophia Robb, Max Thieriot.
Directors:
Doug Liman
Photography:
Barry Peterson |
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Today I had the choice of either watching Jumper or Meet the Spartans. Easy choice. Although Doug Liman's flick is not as good as I would've wanted it to be, it's nevertheless a thousand times better than the latest Jason Friedberg-Aaron Seltzer abomination. Granted, Jumper's storyline had lots of potential and many possibilities to be explored, and the movie unfortunately doesn't explore them all, but it nevertheless managed to entertain me in a very visceral way. Jumper's greatest assets lie on the plot and the action sequences, and its flaws have more to do with the way the story was executed, as well as with some of the performances. It doesn't really end up being as successful or smart as Liman's The Bourne Identity, but given some of the horrible reviews the movie has received, I was expecting much worse. Despite having lots of flaws, Jumper manages to tell an interesting story, provide with credible performances but, most importantly, to entertain the audience in a very exciting fashion.
The movie tells the story of David Rice (Max Thieriot), who starts the film as a teenager, trying to win the affection of a pretty girl and high school companion, Millie (AnnaSophia Robb). A bully grabs the snowglobe David gave to Millie as a present, and when he throws it to a frozen river, he tries to go after it. Things go wrong and David goes under the thing ice, but something happens. He teleports to the school library. Now everyone thinks he's dead, including his alcoholic father (Michael Rooker), so David, using his newly acquired-abilities which, he realizes, give him tons of freedom, escapes from home, robs a bank, and is started to being followed by NSA agent Roland (Samuel L. Jackson), who doesn't like "jumpers." Ten years later, David (now played by Hayden Christensen) is now an adult and has become a millionaire thanks to his powers. He feels lonely, though, so he returns to his home town to find Millie (now played by Rachel Bilson). They get involved in a pretty fast romance and end up travelling to Rome, where Millie starts suspecting that something is wrong with David. There, though, he meets Griffin (Jamie Bell), who tells him that he's involved in a war between paladins (people like Roland) and jumpers, and that both he and his new girlfriend are in danger. It seems now is the time to kill the bad guy.
One of the main problems with Jumper is that it's too fast-paced. The flick's amazingly short - only 88 minutes long (!) -, so the storyline is told in a very rushed fashion, with the filmmakers never allowing the audience to try to absorb anything that's happening. There are many shorts scenes, and characters are underdeveloped; the movie's main concern is to advance the plot, and has pretty much zero character-development-only scenes. Additionally, the ending is disappointing. Liman and his team have been trying to tell as a pretty interesting story for almost an hour and a half, but just before the end credits start, he suddenly decides to end things up, leaving many plot holes and threads untied. It's frustratingly unsatisfying, to say the least.
Moreover, given the fact that this is supposed to be a "superhero" movie or something of the sort, romance should play a reasonably large part in the story, but this isn't the case. Granted, a romance of some sort is established early on in the film when David and Millie are teenagers but, apart from a PG-13 sex scene, nothing more is told about these guys' feelings. Millie is too much of a damsel in distress for my taste, and instead of making her someone worth caring for, a real human being, the screenplay treats her more like a thing the protagonist has to rescue from time to time. She has virtually no personality, and chemistry between Bison and Christensen is almost non-existent. Yeah, the look good together, but that's it.
The thing that disappointed me the most about Jumper is that it wasted too many possibilities. Given the subject matter, the filmmakers had tons of paths they could follow, and they chose a pretty lazy one. The jumpers keep saying that paladins want to kill them because "they can do whatever they want", but we never get to see this. Oh yeah, David travels to the pyramids and to Rome and to the desert, but I'm pretty sure there could be lots of other stuff he could do with his powers. I'm not saying the movie is not ambitious, it's only that, maybe given a larger budget, it could've been more impressive and awe-inspiring.
Performances are pretty good, though. Unfortunately, the actors portraying the teenager versions of the characters are more credible and ultimately more sympathetic than the ones playing the adults. AnnaSophia Robb is great, as always - loved her in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and The Bridge to Terabithia - and Max Thieriot portrays a convincing protagonist. On the other hand, Hayden Christensen, while looking really similar - physically - to Thieriot, makes a really boring David. I guess he's charming and cool, but his performance is lazy. (He's better than in the Star Wars prequels, though.) Rachel Bison is lame too, and looks absolutely nothing like Robb which, along with her lack of talent, makes the character of Millie even more hard to believe. Jamie Bell, fortunately, is energetic and seems to be having fun portraying Griffin. Actually, I wish he had been the film's protagonist. He's definitely much more interesting than David, and well, you gotta love his accent. Secondary performances by Diane Lane and Samuel L. Jackson (playing the main bad guy) are not bad - Jackson does his usual stuff - and Kristen Stewart's, 5-second mini-cameo is, well... awkward.
One thing that I did like about Jumper is that it's exciting and entertaining. It's pretty obvious that Liman is an expert at shooting action sequences. (I guess the Bourne movie made that pretty obvious.) Action scenes are frenetic and generate lots of tension, and are generally inventive and interesting. Given the nature of the powers of the "jumpers", they are sometimes confusing, but it's nothing to get worried about. It's actually cool to watch these guys fight with each other as they jump from one country to another. Visually, the movie's effective mainly because the special effects never call attention to themselves; they're effective and believable. In terms of music, well... it's John Powell. I loved his score for the Bourne movies, and since the music in here is more or less on the same vein, I loved it too. Really exciting stuff.
Oh yeah, one thing I found curious about the movie concerns the title. Since I was educated in a British school, I was always told that the word "jumper" is a synonym to "sweater" or "jersey." It never occurred to me, until now, that it could be related to the word "jump", which is pretty funny if you think about it. I wonder if the audiences in the U.K. found the title kinda funny too...
Ultimately, although Jumper is definitely not as bad as many critics have been saying, it nevertheless didn't manage to be as interesting or smart as it should've been. Granted, the movie is really entertaining and contains some really cool and exciting action sequences and decent performances, but I think it could've been more. The storyline provided with tons of possibilities, but the filmmakers decided to present us with something too familiar and unimpressive. The film is definitely too short, and I'm sure that if Liman had decided to make a two-hour or even a two-and-a-half hour flick, it would've been a more epic, ambitious and fulfilling experience. Additionally, the ending is more of a tease than anything else, promising the audience a sequel that I only hope it's gonna happen. Although the movie's premise is interesting and it contains some intriguing ideas, if the viewer expects something other than a light action movie, he/she will most definitely be disappointed.
©2008 Sebastián Zavala - Star Wars Epica