Jumper (2008)
Directed by Doug Liman
David Rice is a man who knows no boundaries, a Jumper, born with the uncanny ability to teleport instantly to anywhere on Earth. When he discovers others like himself, David is thrust into a dangerous and bloodthirsty war while being hunted by a sinister and determined group of zealots who have sworn to destroy all Jumpers. Now, David’s extraordinary gift may be his only hope for survival!
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What critics say influenced Jumper
Wispy-voiced, devoid of humor or libidinal zing, physically un-commanding, these two bring to mind Gloria Swanson in "Sunset Boulevard" when she laments, "We had faces then."
Yet there is no gainsaying his strongest work; the Cameron who made “Aliens,” “The Abyss,” and the first two “Terminator” films remains one of the few directors capable of shouldering an outlandish concept and bearing it onward to its coherent end.
Yet there is no gainsaying his strongest work; the Cameron who made “Aliens,” “The Abyss,” and the first two “Terminator” films remains one of the few directors capable of shouldering an outlandish concept and bearing it onward to its coherent end.
The same one, in fact, used in every teenager-centric piece of storytelling since at least "Rebel Without a Cause," right down to the sensitive but obtuse girl of his dreams and her jerk, bully boyfriend.
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Michael Rooker ( Cliffhanger ) and Diane Lane are barely around as David’s parents, with the latter ostensibly cast in the tragic event a sequel should arise.
Whatever the case, the white hair and the severe haircut result in Jackson looking like a cross between Wesley Snipes in Demolition Man (1993) and the old guy on the Cream of Wheat box.
Christensen, who's never really recovered from his woefully vanilla reading of the strapping young Sith lord-cum-Tiger Beat pinup, here gets to keep a girl, although not the girl (and not at the Hotel Chevalier, sadly), and beam his molecules all over the globe without ending up like Jeff Goldblum in The Fly. Actually, taken at face value, Jumper is pretty slick, entertaining stuff, well-crafted by Liman; edited into a tight, action-packed bundle of nerviness by Saar Klein (The Bourne Identity); and scripted with not a little Marvel Universality by David S. Goyer (the Blade series and the upcoming X-Men spin-off, Magneto).
He and Christensen acted together in the "Star Wars" series and that film, along with "The Matrix" is halfheartedly referenced here.
It targets the 15 to 25 age-bracket with its CGI fantasy adventure tale that is marketed as a cross between the "Bourne" films and "The Matrix."
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One day, while treading across dangerously thin ice in order to retrieve a sno-globe that he bought for Millie (an item that eventually becomes the most significant such tchotcke to grace movie screens since the one that Orson Welles dropped at the start of “Citizen Kane,” though I assure you that comparisons between the two films begin and end there), David plunges into the water below but inexplicably winds up soaking wet on the floor of the local library.
The chief special effect, wherein Christensen disappears and reappears to the accompaniment of a whooshing sonic thump, is a big yawn, having already been perfected for the ages by Ray Walston in the 1960s sitcom "My Favorite Martian."