Movie Reviews - new films reviewed

What would you do if you could go anywhere you want, with just a little concentration and in no time at all? What if you could teleport, or “jump”, as it is called in this film loosely based on Steven Gould’s novel Jumper: Griffin’s Story (Jumper)? Probably you would enjoy the additional sleep you could get because you can jump right from your home into office without having to deal with traffic jams, traffic lights or delayed public transport. With enough experience, just like Griffin (Jamie Bell) has it, you could even take your car and jump with your car past congestions or red traffic lights. What a thrill! And you could teleport right to your holiday destination, saving the money, time and hassles associated with travelling by plane!
But what if you are only fifteen years old, bullied in school, abandoned by your mother when you were five, and living in a run-down house with your no-good father? David Rice (Hayden Christensen) is such a teenager, and of course he does what you would expect. He jumps into bank vaults, “borrows” loads of cash, runs … well, jumps away from home and starts to live the high life – luxury apartments, hot girls – an eternal holiday, money no problem – there is always a bank vault he can jump into to refill stock.
Years pass before he is confronted with an inconvenient truth – there are people who are royally pissed, not only because of his regular bank jobs but also because they think that “only God should have this power”. They call themselves Paladins, and Roland Cox (Samuel L. Jackson) is one of them. He is black, big, equipped with the latest gadgets to trace and catch jumpers, and it’s his greatest satisfaction to ritually kill a jumper with his knife. And the jumper’s friends and family as well if possible. Griffin, another jumper who is on a mission to kill Paladins, tells David more about his abilities and impairments as a jumper and about the Paladins, and reluctantly agrees to temporarily team up with David to save his father (Michael Rooker) and his highschool girlfriend Millie (Rachel Bilson) and to kill Roland.

Hayden Christensen shows that he can act and we can (almost) forgive him for what he did do Darth Vader in Star Wars Episodes II and III, Samuel L. Jackson is menacing as usual, Jamie Bell brings the right amount of crazyness to his revenge-seeking Griffin, and Rachel Bilson shows she can do more than teenage telly drama The O.C..
But of course it’s not about the acting, it’s about the thrill and the ride – and there are enough questions left open (Who exactly are those Paladins and who supports and funds them? Why this ritual killing with this knife? How many other Jumpers are there and what are they doing? Are Jumpers really turning evil? What’s this business with David’s mother (Diane Lane)?) for Return of Jumper and Sister of Jumper 😉 – bring on the sequels!

JUMPER movie trailer

This entry was posted on Saturday, April 5th, 2008 at 12:13 am and is filed under 3-star-movies, 4-star-movies. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.