Stories should have a reason for existing. They should teach us something, or show us something new about the world, or take us places we haven’t been before, or explore an issue that is (or should be) relevant, or take us through an incident in a person’s life that’s worth experiencing. Jumper’s screenplay is credited to David S. Goyer, who knows how to write stories, and directed by Doug Liman, who knows how to tell them, but like the upcoming 10,000 B.C., it isn’t actually about anything interesting.
At heart, I suppose, Jumper depicts the moment in a young person’s life when he finally lands the girl of his dreams. Except we meet them in high school, when it’s obvious even then that she would go out with him in a second if he bothered to ask.
The young man is named David, and the young woman is named Millie, and he’s played by Max Theriot as a socially awkward 15-year-old and Hayden Christensen as an adult, while she’s played by Bridge to Terabithia’s AnnaSophia Robb as a kid and Rachel Bilson as an adult. As a kid, it’s hard not to sympathize with David; he’s terrorized by Mark, Millie’s lunkhead boyfriend, has difficulty offering Millie a gift (a snowglobe with the Eiffel tower, since Millie wants to travel – foreshadowing, anyone?), and falls into an icy river when Mark throws said gift onto the ice. He survives by “jumping” into the school library. After discovering that by thinking about it, he can go anywhere he wants, he does what any sane 15-year-old with an alcoholic father (who can somehow afford a very nice house) and a mother who abandoned him does: he takes a bus to New York.
As an adult, David uses his “gift” to travel around the world, earns his money by robbing banks, and hasn’t contacted anyone from his hometown in eight years. He never told Millie he survived the dive into the river (though he left her gift in her backyard) and only comes back when he’s attacked by Roland (Samuel L. Jackson), a member of a group of “Paladins,” who are sworn to hunt jumpers.
And here’s where the questions begin: what are jumpers? Why do they exist? Why are the Paladins hunting them? (The movie offers something about only God having the right to that power, but who are they fooling? Most religious nuts would love it.) Why, when he meets her again, does David not tell Millie what happened?
I get sick of action heroes who are terse simply because the plot requires them to be. David doesn’t tell Millie anything only because if he did, our precarious reason for watching would vanish. The only result of him not telling her anything is she gets into more danger. Does he think his silence will protect her somehow? It’s already been shown that anyone he’s touching jumps with him. Does he think she won’t trust him? They’re sleeping together within a week of meeting each other again.
I also don’t get David’s friend, Griffin (Jamie Bell), who’s introduced well and proves to be an entertaining sidekick, but his role in the story is murky.
This is an expensive-looking film. The IMDB informs me that it was filmed over a period of six months, and the Colosseum scenes at least were filmed on location, so I’m guessing the London, Tokyo, Rome, New York, grand canyon and pyramid scenes were as well (though it’s unlikely Hayden Christensen actually sat on a lawn chair on top of the sphinx’s head). But all I could think was either 1) Wow, I wonder if that was filmed on location? 2) Why are they playing into this cliche? or 3) What a waste. All that money… for nothing.
According to the IMDB, Goyer’s screenplay wasn’t used – and was closer to the source novel. Go figure.
The audience that flocked to see Transformers, X3, and the second two Pirates of the Caribbean movies will probably love Jumper, and I suppose it’s a decent enough rental. Had I paid to see it however, I would have demanded my money back.
