...passable entertainment for an overly hot Sunday afternoon.
"Jumper" is colorful and incredibly detailed. Hayden Christensen and Rachel Bilson are lovely young actors and the detail of this transfer shows their attractive faces in great detail. The jump scars are an interesting visual effect and their effect is amplified at 1080p. The film´s strong visual locations come across beautifully in detail and in color. The hues pop out of each frame, but never looks over-processed and generally feels natural. Black levels are solid, but I found the film lost its high definition feeling during many of the darker scenes, particularly those around Griffin´s hideout. The digital transfer shows no apparent flaws and this is a clean transfer that was culled from very good source elements.
Audio:
"Jumper" is just as effective in its audio as it is in its visuals. It is not a perfect audio mix, but it is the next best thing to perfection with a solid English DTS HD 5.1 Master Lossless Audio mix. The film is chocked full of effective bass segments and nicely utilizes the rear surrounds. All six channels are used effectively, but "Jumper" is one of those pictures that offer a very good surround mix that doesn´t feel forced and keeps the ears attentive during the entire picture. Movement between speakers was very nice with clean flow from channel to channel. My only complaint in the mix was partly due to Jamie Bell´s accent as Griffin, but dialogue was sometimes difficult to hear when Griffin and David were conversing. I missed one or two sentences entirely and a few words here and there. It didn´t take away from my viewing of the film, but the drop off was noticeable. Spanish and French Dolby Digital 5.1 surround mixes are included as well as subtitles in English, Spanish, Cantonese, Mandarin and Korean.
Extras:
A number of very nice supplements are included with the "Digital Copy Special Edition" of "Jumper" that finds a Digital Copy of Jumper for Portable Media Players on an included second DVD platter. Fox has been offering a large number of films with this Digital Copy feature and it doesn´t take too much effort to put the film onto a portable unit such as a Zune or iPod and travel with a small collection of Fox films with you. I applaud Fox for this feature and as along as it doesn´t push the price of the releases up a couple of dollars, it is an interesting precedent that may help the Blu-ray format compete against digital downloads of films to portable devices. The Jumping Around the World (non-PiP version) features all of the video segments shown in the PiP version and they are selectable from a world map and navigation across the map allows each segment to be selected individually. I would have liked an ability to simply watch them all together.
The Blu-ray release features all of the bonus features from the DVD release as well as a Picture-in-Picture feature for Profile 1.1 capable players. This Jumping Around the World feature is an extension of the identically named feature. It includes the same footage as what is contained in that featurette, but places into an attractive PiP interface that appears during the viewing of the film. Each PiP pop-up contains a menu that details the locale shown in the scene, as well as offering up some text-based information based upon the scene and some video footage pulled from the featurette that looks into the production of the film. The material could have worked harder to fill the entire picture, which is a short 88 minutes, but only about a quarter of the film´s running time as an active PiP window.
A Commentary by Director Doug Liman, Writer/Producer Simon Kinberg and Producer Lucas Foster is contained on the disc. The commentary track was recorded with all attendees in one session and they have a very good conversation on the making of the problematic film. "Jumper" may actually be more worth watching with the commentary track turned on and having the viewer get an appreciation for how difficult it was to make this picture. It is an above average audio commentary track. The Jump Start: David´s Story – Animated Graphic Novel (8:07) is an excellent little animated feature that gives some further insight into the backstory of David and this is material that would have made "Jumper" a better film.
The next few features are nice featurettes on various aspects of the film. Doug Liman´s Jumper: Uncensored (35:34) is a very nice documentary on the filming of this problematic picture. Doug Liman recast his entire cast and only Jamie Bell remained from the initial cast. Some locations required they could only shoot during certain hours of the day and there were other headaches surrounding shooting at other historic locations. I thoroughly enjoyed this feature. Making an Actor Jump (7:36) is a nicely done look at the CGI effects used in the film and how Liman used a combination of CGI and practical effects to create the look of a ´jump.´
Jumping from Novel to Film: The Past, Present and Future of Jumper (8:08) gave a history on the story and the novels from Steven Gould. There is some hope for a sequel for those that loved the film. Six Deleted Scenes (11:17) are included that still have intact green screens. While nothing spectacular is contained in this set of bonus material, there is some much-needed screen time for Diane Lane. Finally Previz: Future Concepts (4:35) is a series of detailed digital animatics that show some of the action scenes from the film. The film is also Enhanced D-Box Motion Control Systems.
Closing:
"Jumper" had a wonderful premise and a talented cast, but the film never rose above being anything more than passable entertainment. Director Doug Liman had hoped to make "Jumper" the first entry of a franchise that was to be the ´Bourne´ series of superhero stories. With the film being marginally successful, it will need a good life on home video to bring about a sequel. The potential for a great action film was there, but the ingredients never seemed to gel enough to make "Jumper" as tasty as it could have been. The Blu-ray release features very strong sound and video and a nice array of supplements that show what the format is capable of. I found the PiP feature to be well done, but too think on materials. It was still the best Profile 1.1 entry I´ve seen and while the film isn´t a solid experience, the Blu-ray release is.
Audio:
"Jumper" is just as effective in its audio as it is in its visuals. It is not a perfect audio mix, but it is the next best thing to perfection with a solid English DTS HD 5.1 Master Lossless Audio mix. The film is chocked full of effective bass segments and nicely utilizes the rear surrounds. All six channels are used effectively, but "Jumper" is one of those pictures that offer a very good surround mix that doesn´t feel forced and keeps the ears attentive during the entire picture. Movement between speakers was very nice with clean flow from channel to channel. My only complaint in the mix was partly due to Jamie Bell´s accent as Griffin, but dialogue was sometimes difficult to hear when Griffin and David were conversing. I missed one or two sentences entirely and a few words here and there. It didn´t take away from my viewing of the film, but the drop off was noticeable. Spanish and French Dolby Digital 5.1 surround mixes are included as well as subtitles in English, Spanish, Cantonese, Mandarin and Korean.
Extras:
A number of very nice supplements are included with the "Digital Copy Special Edition" of "Jumper" that finds a Digital Copy of Jumper for Portable Media Players on an included second DVD platter. Fox has been offering a large number of films with this Digital Copy feature and it doesn´t take too much effort to put the film onto a portable unit such as a Zune or iPod and travel with a small collection of Fox films with you. I applaud Fox for this feature and as along as it doesn´t push the price of the releases up a couple of dollars, it is an interesting precedent that may help the Blu-ray format compete against digital downloads of films to portable devices. The Jumping Around the World (non-PiP version) features all of the video segments shown in the PiP version and they are selectable from a world map and navigation across the map allows each segment to be selected individually. I would have liked an ability to simply watch them all together.
The Blu-ray release features all of the bonus features from the DVD release as well as a Picture-in-Picture feature for Profile 1.1 capable players. This Jumping Around the World feature is an extension of the identically named feature. It includes the same footage as what is contained in that featurette, but places into an attractive PiP interface that appears during the viewing of the film. Each PiP pop-up contains a menu that details the locale shown in the scene, as well as offering up some text-based information based upon the scene and some video footage pulled from the featurette that looks into the production of the film. The material could have worked harder to fill the entire picture, which is a short 88 minutes, but only about a quarter of the film´s running time as an active PiP window.
A Commentary by Director Doug Liman, Writer/Producer Simon Kinberg and Producer Lucas Foster is contained on the disc. The commentary track was recorded with all attendees in one session and they have a very good conversation on the making of the problematic film. "Jumper" may actually be more worth watching with the commentary track turned on and having the viewer get an appreciation for how difficult it was to make this picture. It is an above average audio commentary track. The Jump Start: David´s Story – Animated Graphic Novel (8:07) is an excellent little animated feature that gives some further insight into the backstory of David and this is material that would have made "Jumper" a better film.
The next few features are nice featurettes on various aspects of the film. Doug Liman´s Jumper: Uncensored (35:34) is a very nice documentary on the filming of this problematic picture. Doug Liman recast his entire cast and only Jamie Bell remained from the initial cast. Some locations required they could only shoot during certain hours of the day and there were other headaches surrounding shooting at other historic locations. I thoroughly enjoyed this feature. Making an Actor Jump (7:36) is a nicely done look at the CGI effects used in the film and how Liman used a combination of CGI and practical effects to create the look of a ´jump.´
Jumping from Novel to Film: The Past, Present and Future of Jumper (8:08) gave a history on the story and the novels from Steven Gould. There is some hope for a sequel for those that loved the film. Six Deleted Scenes (11:17) are included that still have intact green screens. While nothing spectacular is contained in this set of bonus material, there is some much-needed screen time for Diane Lane. Finally Previz: Future Concepts (4:35) is a series of detailed digital animatics that show some of the action scenes from the film. The film is also Enhanced D-Box Motion Control Systems.
Closing:
"Jumper" had a wonderful premise and a talented cast, but the film never rose above being anything more than passable entertainment. Director Doug Liman had hoped to make "Jumper" the first entry of a franchise that was to be the ´Bourne´ series of superhero stories. With the film being marginally successful, it will need a good life on home video to bring about a sequel. The potential for a great action film was there, but the ingredients never seemed to gel enough to make "Jumper" as tasty as it could have been. The Blu-ray release features very strong sound and video and a nice array of supplements that show what the format is capable of. I found the PiP feature to be well done, but too think on materials. It was still the best Profile 1.1 entry I´ve seen and while the film isn´t a solid experience, the Blu-ray release is.
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[release]23485[/release]