Merrick here...

Sex Farm, whose written for us on several occasions, sent in this look at JUMPER. The film opens next week...Valentine's Day, to be exact.

This whole premise strikes me as an undercurrent of a TV show...maybe HEROES or something...more than a theatrical concept. "The Jumpers are here to steal ____! We've gotta stop them!"

Haven't seen it yet, though, so I can't say for sure.

THERE ARE MODERATE SPOILERS THROUGHOUT THE REVIEW, SO BE WARNED!




Here's Sex Farm...

Surprised there's not been any reviews of this on the site. I saw it this morning but it seems like the movie's being kept under wraps. Having seen it, I can say that that's not because it's an out-and-out turkey, but I doubt they'll be getting any particularly rave reviews. As a whole, Jumper is just thoroughly underwhelming.

There's been an arrogance to the film since I first saw anything. I'm utterly baffled at how they've been promoting this film, and thought the trailer was completely confusing. If you watch that trailer, it's like they think they have an original concept and a truly special effect to show off, but I'm yet to find a person that saw that trailer and thought the movie looked cool. And then there's this whole idea that the movie-going world is going to be blown away by this concept that someone can go anywhere at any time, to the extent that the marketing campaign has started to resemble an advert for a vacation.

Whatever... with a bit more room to breathe, in the context of the film, the 'jumping' is reasonably cool, and I respect the fact that David Rice (Hayden C) first uses it to rob a bank, rather than doing anything heroic or respectable. The problem is, again, the arrogance. The lead character in this film is a flat out, cast iron douchebag. We see him lie around his apartment, shrugging his shoulders at TV news footage of people trapped in floods, people he could maybe go rescue, if only he wanted to. I think what they're trying to do is show that he's *not* a superhero, that he's just a regular guy, but he just comes across as completely unlikeable.

He reminds me of the ego-tripping city trader archetype who crops up in movies as the leading lady's boyfriend, who we hope she soon ditches so she can go with the quirky leading man we all like. Here, he's our 'in' to the story, and he never gets more likeable as the film progresses. It's like they set him up to be a selfish asshole who grows into someone we can root for, then forgets to have him make that transition. He drags Rachel Bilson around Rome, where she's always wanted to go, ruins the trip of her dreams and then bundles her on a plane home.

Hmm.

So, with the jumping concept decided on, and a lead boy and girl cast, other characters - Sam Jackson as the leader of the 'Paladins', and Jamie Bell as a rough-around-the-edges 'Jumper' - have been slapped on to the story in an attempt to create conflict and drama. Jamie Bell, playing 'Griffin', is fun to watch - he's got his British accent, Doug Liman's clearly allowed him to have a bit of fun, he's kind of scattershot and likeable, but the script forces him to refuse to help David Rice, even though that doesn't make much sense.

At times, we're meant to root for David over Griffin, which was the polar opposite of how I felt. These two are both threatened by/on the trail of Sam Jackson's Roland, the leader of a group of people who chase Jumpers, seemingly, just for the fuck of it. The reason we're given is that they're religious fanatics who think only god should have the power of omnipresence, and that's it. That's all we're told and, no, it doesn't stand up to any kind of scrutiny. It's just fucking stupid.

But hey, it's all just an excuse for some cool action, right? Well... no, not really. There's very little on display here... Griffin dodges some agents in Rome, Roland smacks David around in his apartment, there's a vaguely cool bit where Griffin captures a London bus and 'jumps' with it so he can throw it at someone in a desert, and two jumpers have a world-traveling showdown, chasing each other as they hop about the place and fall off high stuff. On paper, maybe, quite cool, but in reality, a little bit hard to follow, and very hard to get excited about because there's no real way to invest in these flimsy, unlikeable characters, who are motivated only by whatever artificial drama the script concocts. There's a bit with a flame thrower, which was fun in that it reminded me of the 80s, but that's one of the high points, and no-one even runs around burning in a fun way.

Any redeeming features? Nothing I can get too enthused about. It's 'meh' the movie, really. Not as eye-rollingly bad as the likes of Elektra or anything like that, but really just a completely forgettable 85-ish minutes.