Jumper, dir. Doug Liman (2008)

NIKKI says:
Oh, where to begin? You know, I've got no real issue with the plot -- that a guy who can teleport and lives large because of it finds out there are others like him, and others who don't like him, and so becomes involved in an ancient war to wipe out his kind because only God should be able to teleport.

You have to have a set up, right?

So, that was fine. The problem was with all the damn holes in the story, and how loose ends were never tied. More infuriating is the fact that much of these holes could have been puttied over with just a few script tweaks. I thought there were test audiences for these sorts of things? Did no one at the Jumper screening question how easily David, the jumper, slid back into his hometown bar eight years after he was presumed dead? Not a single old friend (all of whom happened to be at the bar that day, luckily) stopped the guy in his tracks and said, "We thought you were dead." It was all, "He's back!" And the bully who caused David's supposed death had no concerns whatsoever but to go and beat him up again?

Not one solitary person at a screening, during the writing of the script, during the film's entire conceptualisation (if that is a word) even stopped to think, "But wait, he's dead -- that would have caused a sensation, locally."

If that wasn't stupid enough, after five minutes back in town, David's high school sweetheart travels to Rome with him on a whim. Becuase bar chicks in small towns can do that, no problem. Following that, though, she gets arrested by Italian authorities, and spends much of the film saying things like, "What's going on?"

If only someone would tell her, so that perhaps we'd know, too. The basic concept -- got it. But the stuff with David's mum made no sense. Why does she "give him a head start" at the end after helping him to escape in Italy? How could she have simply abandoned her son? Why does Jamie Bell's character go all the way to Japan just to drive a fast car in the middle of the Jumper/Paladin War? Why are we supposed to like David when he has spent his life ripping us off and buying big TVs? Why are we supposed to like David when the day before he reconnected with his old girlfriend, he flew to London for the sole purpose of getting laid? Which he did?

Oh, movie.

Hayden Christensen is not doing himself any favours with schlock like this. He's a good actor. He should choose more roles like the one he had in Shattered Glass. I fear if he keeps doing this sort of thing, no one will give him a chance like that again. Hayden -- save yourself!

1/5