DNfromMN - Movie Review - Jumper

JUMPER

Release Date 2/14/08

The Story: Dave Rice (Hayden Christensen) discovers that he’s a jumper, who can create and travel through wormholes to anywhere he desires—including bank vaults. The ultimate thing he desires is Millie (Rachel Bilson), the girl he left back home in Michigan. The problem is, when you steal money, someone’s bound to track you down. Enter Raymond (Samuel L Jackson), the paladin, who has lots of electronic toys at his disposal, but prefers a knife shrouded in a dirty old rag. Griffin (Jamie Bell, 10 years beyond Billy Elliot) is another jumper, who is Dave’s reluctant Obi-Wan Kenobi. That’s the first 20 minutes.

Action movies are released in the summer in America. That’s just the way it’s been – people are overheating, they don’t want to think, students have a lot of free time, it’s a good time of year to release an action movie. Why would you release an action movie in February? Because it’ll get stomped on in the summer, because it’s not all that action packed. Watch the trailer, you’ll see most (I’ll argue 75%) of the movie’s action in those 3 minutes.

You know all that great chemistry that Hayden and Rachel have on their lunch and shopping dates that we see in photos all the time? Oh, you never noticed it? Me either. Guess what? They have no chemistry on screen either. Director Doug Liman must have been tearing his hair out, and I think he probably gave up on the movie once they were cast (which in a quick google search tells me: whoops, they weren’t the first choices).

Liman’s an interesting guy, he directed Swingers and Go! and stepped things up with The Bourne Identity and Mr. & Mrs. Smith. On every movie since Go!, he’s had problems with going over budget and not wanting to let go. With Jumper, I think he lost editing privileges with his shenanigans. Other than a 15 minute intro with teenaged versions of the characters (done with completely different actors for reasons beyond me since Bilson and Hayden look like they’re 15, to me), you don’t know anything about any of the other people until the movie’s almost completely over. Throw in essentially cameos by Diane Lane and Kristen Stewart (who answers a door, and walks into another room… that’s her role, for someone who headlined in 2 movies, and had a featured role in Into the Wild last year), and you’ve got yourself a lot of interesting pieces and an incomplete movie.

There was a smattering of applause at my screening, so this will appeal to some people. Not my people.

It’s mindless entertainment, emphasis on the mindless since you’ll have to suspend a lot of disbelief, and you won’t have a clue what people’s motivations are. (For example: Why does Sam Jackson use a knife? What drives Jamie Bell’s character to do the things he does? Why the heck does Rachel Bilson’s character go on a vacation with someone she hasn’t seen for 8 years under mysterious circumstances?)

What it’s worth: $2.50. Here’s the thing, based on previews, based on Sam Jackson (who really does make a lot of stinkers, but I’ll see almost anything he does anyway), based on Liman: I was going to see this movie anyway. I would’ve doubted all the reviews (just to compare my reaction, I pulled up Rotten Tomatoes – currently at 22% as I write this), and gone anyway. I’m telling you, if you really have a desire to see this movie: cheapy theater/dvd/free passes.

Opening This Weekend (note: most of these are opening on Valentine’s Day)

Jumper – see above

Definitely, Maybe – Ryan Reynolds in a romantic comedy with Abigail Breslin and Rachel Weisz. I like all these people. I like romantic comedies, I’ll probably end up seeing this some point this weekend.

The Spiderwick Chronicles – I like kid’s movies, but I usually see them at the 2nd run theater.

Step Up 2: The Streets – ummm…. Unless the subtitle is referring to Scottish rappers, I don’t expect to see it.

My money will be spent on “Definitely, Maybe” this week. And a special screening of Troma Films’s Poultrygeist on Friday night (currently doing a world tour with individual screenings. http://www.poultrygeistmovie.com/screenings/ for more details), I can enjoy a b-movie when I know ahead of time it’s going to be awful.