There’s something that is critical when telling a story of a superhero-esque character, particularly one that is unknown to the majority of the audience, and that is to have us believe and go along with it for the length of the film. Jumper unfortunately loses us not only with the super-ability that it showcases but in the annoying side-stories that need not be there.
Whilst almost drowning, a young man discovers he has the ability to teleport anywhere he wants in the world. But he soon finds out that with this power comes great consequences when a group known as the Paladins try to hunt him down as they have done with others of his kind for centuries.
Director Doug Liman should have produced something infinitely better than this. He was behind the camera for the first Bourne film, giving the genre a swift kick up the ass, and also directed the underrated Mr. and Mrs. Smith. So it’s not as if he doesn’t know how to make a film, especially when it comes to action. And with the central teleportation element, there was great potential for some kick-ass action sequences that would have rivaled other films of the genre. However the action here is incoherent and disappointingly short-lived. Just when you get through the sea of unnecessary sub-plots and wooden acting to reach an action sequence, the film hardly gives you time to get into the swing of things before jumping to another location for another scene we just don’t care about.
The film seems to have its focus on anywhere but the action where it should rightfully be. More care and attention have been put into the sub-plots involving our main character's past and his girlfriend, the obligatory love interest who drags the film to a screeching halt every time she appears on screen (not that the film was going very fast on its own). And I’m not one that’s automatically against love interests in movies; if done right I think they can work just fine (the insanely-paced Crank being a fine example of this) but the problem is Jumper lets the character take precedent over everything else, like she’s the one we all care about and not this jumping element. At one point in the movie, Jamie Bell, who appears as another Jumper, actually states, “Did I ask to hear about your family? Are we on Oprah…?” Did they actually know what they were doing with this? I actually had hope at this moment that the film might have been playing some sort of trick on us, telling a sort of in-joke all along and from then on it would kick everything up a few notches. But no, this realization on the film’s part is short-lived and we get dropped back into the way the film has been going up until that point.
Article comments