I'm not having a very good time of it lately; it seems that wherever I look I'm confronted by a movie that has either Jamie Bell or Hayden Christensen in it. Imagine my annoyance then on having to see the movie Jumper, a film that puts both the actors together. Luckily for me Jumper starts off pretty good, and I'm pleased to say that Christensen an actor who annoys me more than many others is actually quite acceptable as the movies lead, on the downside young Jamie Bell is not so hot.
David Rice (initially played by Max Thieriot before later being played by Christensen) is a good kid, a good kid that wants to be a little different. His dad (Michael Rooker) is a heavy drinker and he feels let down that his mother (Diane Lane) deserted them when he was just five years old. On a snow and ice filled day David tries to impress love interest Millie (AnnaSophia Rob later played Rachel Bilson) by stepping out onto ice. Misjudging the thickness to Millie and other friends horror
he falls through the ice and never re-emerges. Thinking he is dead the news soon gets around, and Millie finds the news particularly hard to deal with. Luckily for David he has "Jumped" a sort of superhuman power allowing him to slip through a sort of portable black hole, the result that he appears instantly to a location of his choice, well eventually once he masters the power. Seizing the opportunity to shake off the issues of his old life David escapes to New York to start a new life, where he tries to master his power, and "borrows" money from a bank. But his power to jump does not go un-noticed and it's not long before the sinister Roland (Samuel L. Jackson) is on his tail; a man who's motives are not entirely clear.
Jumper certainly starts off as a perfectly capable movie, cleverly delivered and nicely handled by the annoying Christensen. And for the most part I really enjoyed the movie, however no sooner has he met up with Jamie Bell bearing one of the worst mock Irish accents I have heard for a long time (a kind of Dick Van Dyke Cockney, mixed with Aussie Paul Hogan); the story seems to take a sharp nose dive. I should add that despite the bad accent Bell is not the actual cause of the nose dive, its more of a story fault than anything else. Having had the opportunity to be something different, the movie suddenly follows along a fairly generic superhero style path, with a final battle that left me cold if only for the shortness of the event.That final good guy meets bad guy, in this case Roland played by Jackson is one of the flattest events I think in movie history, having earlier proven that he is more than a match for David the final fight is quite literally and most annoyingly over in a few seconds.
To me Jumper was to some degree a non-event considering the fact it has obliterated all competition at the box office, it seems people can't help but go and see a superhero movie, presumably fuelled by the bundle of superhero style TV shows currently littering American TV, not least the highly popular Heroes. The reason I refer to this as a no-event is simply because it seems all too rushed, with a running time of around an hour and twenty minutes there is quite a lot of ground to cover, and it's delivered in a most intense blur. To top this off the movie has a highly predictable journey path, well after the first 30 minutes at least.
As I stated earlier Christensen is not half bad for once, I was fairly annoyed with two of his recent roles, his portrayal in the movie Awake being one of the worst I have seen for an A-Lister in sometime. Here he is far less "plastic" seemingly regaining the acting talent he had in his pre-Star Wars movie Life As A House. But then his acting is quite understated, almost being second place to the power that he has, which often is the case in superhero style movies.
The choice of locations from the movie is quite good, and creates a big feel to the picture, possibly making it bigger than it actually is. There are some great scenes in some of the worlds lesser seen locations, as well as the first shot I can remember that shows the closeness of the Egyptian Pyramids and the Sphinx to the town, a closeness you just never see in movies; often allowing people to assume that these constructions are in the middle of the desert.
While as a DVD Jumper is reasonable viewing, I'd be quite annoyed to have paid good money to go to the cinema to see this. It just lacks a certain sort of magic, well for me certainly; I guess for others though this might hit the spot just right. On the plus side this is a movie that is suitable for all to see, no sticky scenes, and no bad language; the violence too is reasonably controlled in a kind of 60's action movie style.
Jumper is in cinemas at the time of writing this with a September DVD release date.
Spencer Hawken 02/08
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Science Fiction - Director: Hiroyuki Yamaga - Original Language: Japanese - Classification: 15 years and over - Starring: Ayako Kawasumi, Fujiko Takimoto
Production Year: 2007 - Science Fiction - Director: Francis Lawrence - Original Language: English - Classification: 15 years and over - Starring: Alice Braga, Charlie Tahan, Dash Mihok, Will Smith, Salli Richardson, Willow Smith
I was shown the trailers for this as part of a survey somewhere ages ago... I told them it looked like pants and the name should be changed... did they listen? Did they feck. What's the point in asking folk's opinions if they ignore it? lol xxx
ultrafrosty 29.02.2008 21:13
Not sure I'm 100% wanting to see this one! Not that I have much time to galavant to the cinema what with the little 'un being almost 5 months old and becoming more of a handful each day!
Seresecros 27.02.2008 18:21
Yeah.... "understated". Understated to the point of mild coma.
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Postage & Packaging: £0.00 Availability: 3-5 working days
![Jumper [DVD] [2008] [Region 1] [US Import] [NTSC]](http://picnicb.ciao.com/uk/69769299.jpg "Jumper [DVD] [2008] [Region 1] [US Import] [NTSC]")
![Jumper [DVD] [2008]](http://picnica.ciao.com/uk/79803698.jpg "Jumper [DVD] [2008]")
Feb 23rd, 2008
very helpful by (100%):
