Jon Peters Reviews: Jumper

“Jumper” is the perfect example of Hollywood filler. It exists just to exist and it’s not anything you would be mad about if you missed seeing it. It’s wooden, silly, and ultimately, admits just a yawn from the audience. Its core target demography is teenage boys and I’ve seen a few constantly get up and leave the theater, coming back 15 plus minutes later-not good.

Based on a book “Jumper” is about a high schooler, David Rice (Hayden Christiansen) who is constantly picked on. Through a freak accident in which he is struggling to live, after falling in a frozen lake, he vivaciously teleports, saving his life and eventually freeing himself from his constraints of being abandoned by his mother and his over-bearing father. Flash forward some odd years, and he has now grasp teleporting. But with such freedom, come consequences and responsibilities, and Agent Roland (Sam Jackson).

The film never explains his condition and the reason why he can teleport, hopefully, the book was better in description. Apparently, he just can and there were generations of these types of people who can. The script never develops much in terms of character development or plot; it just lingers there, moving sluggishly from scene to scene. It’s a fun concept on paper, which is terribly disappointing knowing that David S. Goyer wrote the script or at least had a hand in it. Goyer has written some of the past decade’s best genre films, stuff like “Blade”, “Dark City”, and “Batman Begins”, and with those titles on your resume, something like “Jumper” should’ve been better. Maybe not in terms of those I mentioned, but at least had some fun, something like his polished touch on “Freddy vs. Jason”. Hopefully, with “The Invisible” and “Jumper” out of his system, this summer’s “The Dark Knight”, although written by the Nolan brothers based on Goyer’s outline, will return him to the genre film’s top screenwriters.

Doug Lyman, the director, in my opinion, has had diminishing returns after his lightning-in-the-bottle “Bourne Identity”. He’s a capable action set piece director, but falters during dialogue scenes, failing to capture any momentum towards the next scene. Partly because of the weak script, but also comes back to him and how he stages some of these talking moments. If “Jumper” is the type of things to come from him, I might question who really directed “Bourne Identity”.

I could pinpoint Christensen’s wooden acting or the film’s bizarre late-minute twist, but seriously it’s all scripting. I’ve blamed Goyer but maybe I should lighten up on him, the film did have two credited screenwriters besides Goyer. With that, you have to somewhat caution yourself. The film never reaches for anything other that some CG teleporting wow’ moments and never builds toward an ending or a proper climax. It’s Hollywood filler, hoping for another buck and another franchise.