Jumper

When I saw the first trailer for Jumper I was very excited . . . and appalled. The special effects were clearly top-shelf and the story line promised a departure from the mundane; but in that I was horrified! I had written a story just like that when I was 15! Someone had stolen my idea! As it is, no one actually stole anything from me, so all I can assume is that Steven Gould and I are great minds and we must have been thinking alike.

In the summer of 1995 I wrote a short story about a group of teenagers who could jump through time and space. I entitled the story The Wall Jumpers because of the “scientific” phenomenon of jumping “the wall” between this space-time continuum to the next. Anyway, I never did anything with the story, but when I started a band later that year I adopted the name. You can learn more about
The WaLL JuMPeRs all throughout my site and at Pure Volume.

Anyway, in my story the protagonists were good guys who policed the world. In Doug Liman’s Jumper, David Rice (Hayden Christensen) is less than an upstanding citizen. After running away from his home at the age of fifteen, he quickly turns to robbing banks to stay alive. The film has certain coming-of-age elements, but few were expanded and even less were resolved. This may have to do with the director’s vision of a Jumper trilogy, but if Liman’sdreams aren’t realized he’s going to wish he’d done more with Rice’s character to show that he really did grow and change. The very first time we see “grown-up” Rice he’s jumping around his apartment as if in a casual, daily routine. At one point he turns on the news and watches, in apparent annoyance, as hundreds of people are stranded in torrents of flooding water. The announcer says it would take a “miracle” to save these people, and Rice changes the channel. This is clearly a hint as to where Liman wants to take the character in future installments . . . I only hope he has the opportunity to do so.

The basic gist of the film is that there’s a thousand year old feud between Jumpers and Palladins. Jumpers can transport themselves instantly to almost any place in the world. Palladins believe only God should have the power of omnipresence. Though I doubt it had anything to do with the their faulty theology, the Palladin’s motivation for hunting down and brutally murdering Jumpers (with the occasional friend and family member thrown in for good measure) was barely believable. It’s one thing to be jealous of someones powers. It’s another thing to do your best to protect the world from those who would misuse their special abilities. But it’s a completely different thing when your motivation is tied up in your view of God: “I’ll gladly brake God’s 6th commandment (don’t murder) because I don’t think He’d want you disappearing from one place and appearing in another without having to use a door.” I don’t know . . . it seemed a little hypocritical and superficial. 

I’m not going to say a lot about the special effects. It’s true they’re first-rate, but I was more impressed by what they went through to createthe effects. First of all, though it may seem hard to believe, they didn’t rely on any more CGI than they had to. I always appreciate that in a special effects movie. Second of all, the people in charge all sat down months before and devoted countless hours to create the effect from a real-world standpoint. What kind of things influence a jump? Would there be reciprocal effects in the atmosphere after a jump? Do things like emotions, distance, and weather variables have an effect on the way the jump looks and the amount of damage created. For example, one of David’s most violent jumps (causing a supreme amount of damage) occurred as he jumped his murdered father to the hospital. A close examination of each of the jumps in the context of the scene show how the director and crew put a lot of emphasis on consistency. Their attention to detail is refreshing in a world of fly-by-night films.

I was extremely leery about the quality of acting when I saw their line up. First of all there was Rachel, a relative newcomer who didn’t really appear on the Hollywood scene until 2003, and hasn’t done too many movies since. Then there’s Sam. Good ol’ Samuel L. Jackson, the words greatest supporting actor. I wasn’t concerned with his screen presence, but I knew he wouldn’t deliver any Oscar winning performances. And lastly the much debated Hayden Christensen. I was sorely disappointed withhis acting in Star Wars II, and he just barely redeemed himself with his performance in Star Wars III. Let’s just say I was curious to see if he’d grown much as an actor or if he still relied on his Australian Soap training to carry him through.

                 

                  

Overall I say the movie delivered. There were fantastic effects, a decent plot, refreshing acting, and lovable characters (Griffen and Milly particularly). I honestly look forward to future installments: I’m curious what they do between Rice and his mother. Oh, you didn’t know? Rice is a Jumper. His mom is a Palladin. That makes for unique family reunions.