Theatrical Review of Jumper

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I´m convinced "Jumper" has a connection to the number 5. After all, David (Hayden Christensen) claims he´s been in love with Millie (Rachel Bilson) since he was five. Griffin´s (Jamie Bell) parents died when he was five. David´s mother, I think, ran out on him and his father when he was five. If there is a connection, the script never bothers to make it. Which is par for the course, apparently, since other plot points don´t connect in any way, either.

After he falls into an icy river one day after school, David Rice learns he is able to teleport, or jump, from one place to another. He also learns how to rob banks and steal everything from wetsuits to surf board. It isn´t until an encounter with a man simply known as Roland (Samuel L. Jackson, with a hideous head of white hair) that David goes from being a hunter to the hunted.

Coming in at a paltry 88 minutes, "Jumper" wants to create a new super hero, a different type of super hero. Not an X Man, not a Super Man…just a regular guy who gets powers and uses them for his own purposes, not for the common good. And, in a sense, it is moderately successful in that one regard. Take, for instance, a scene where David watches people caught in a flood. It would be nothing for him to teleport into the area, be a hero and then leave again. What does he do? Turns the TV off, presumably because it depresses him. Yet he goes to long lengths to protect Millie once Roland comes after her near the end of the film. Not to save her life because there is intrinsic value in human life, but because he wants her.

Selfish is the word I´d use for David. It´s due to that selfishness everything happening on screen feels cold and calculated without any empathy behind it. Christensen´s one note performance doesn´t help either, nor do the leaps in internal logic. No one seems fazed by the fact David-at any age-seems to have more money than most 40-year-olds. No one sees him camping out on top of a Sphinx in the desert. Millie doesn´t have any qualms with going to Rome with a person she had thought was dead. And if Griffin-a British jumper-is so intent on living a closeted life, why does he use his teleportation powers in broad daylight, in public and with stolen cars?

See, nothing much makes sense in "Jumper" and the story doesn´t much mind. It doesn´t mind to explain the teleportation mutation or anything about Roland´s organization…outside of a small mention of jumpers being against god´s plan. That´s where the film should have spent most of its time: exploring the history of jumpers and their pursuers, how the mutation develops and the like. If this is to be a franchise (based on the ending, Fox clearly has designs on making more "Jumper" films), the first installment has to explain the universe, bring the audience into it and deliver a standalone story.

David S. Goyer (of "Blade" and "Batman Begins" fame) knows that, based on his previous work. Tom DeSanto and Bryan Singer understood this concept on the first "X-Men" film. David Koepp got the memo, too, on "Spider-Man." So what went wrong here? I´m apt to fault the original novel by Steven Gould, yet I understand Roland is a construct only for this film. (It should also be noted Goyer´s original adapted screenplay was rewritten at least twice.) A lack of history and backstory doesn´t just hurt the main story; it nearly decimates the possibilities of future films.

Poor Diane Lane, for example. She´s stuck with two scenes in the film-one gives her less than a minute of screen time-the latter of which opens a new world of questions it has no right to pose. This is a thankless role, similar to Samuel L. Jackson´s near-cameo is the first "Star Wars" prequel. There has to be more for her character to do, something to justify an actress of her stature being stuck in "Jumper." We get barely a hint of what is to come. To the writers-all of them-it´s simply not important.

What is important, then? I´m not quite sure. The romance between Millie and David is stillborn; he reappears in her life with no explanation and the next thing they know, they´re breaking into the Colosseum in Rome. What exactly are the origins of Roland´s faith-based commandos? Meh, something going back to the Inquisition. What happened after David fell into a frozen lake? Don´t know. Don´t care. What has Griffin been doing to fight Roland? Gee, come to think of it, we don´t know what either.

When the total of "Jumper" is taken into account, there´s not much to redeem it. Location shooting, from Rome to Tokyo, happens to be one of the brighter spots. The camera doesn´t so much as linger on any the locations as they lend a certain amount of credibility to the film. (As opposed to, say, Canadian locations which are used through the rest of the film.) There are no likeable-or even despicable-characters. Even Roland is nothing more than a two bit villain, twirling his mustache while off screen. Jackson can´t bring anything to the part besides being a generic villain.

It´s an incredibly vapid endeavor never amounting to much. Are there possibilities for good stories? Absolutely. Either the screenplay is hamstrung by the source material, an executive messed with the final cut…or there was a rather shallow story already in place. I´m not sure which one. In any event, though, we won´t be seeing another installment, at least based on this one.

"Jumper" doesn´t even manage to be an entertaining diversion. David´s reaction to being "special" may very well be how the majority of us would react (aka using the powers selfishly as opposed to for good), yet he still comes off as a pouty, self-obsessed teenager. Only a somewhat engaging performance by Jamie Bell-and a good jumping effect or two-highlights an otherwise boring hour and a half. Rating? 4 out of 10. Dog days of February, indeed.

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