This comic book geek is disappointed

A late blog tonight, but i went to see Jumper this evening and decided before I went that this blog would more or less be a review of the film.

I first heard the premise of the film Jumper sometime last year and didn't think much of it, after all teleportation isn't particularly new in films. It's been seen plenty in Star Trek, and even in regards to the superhero genre we've seen it in X-men 2 with the character of Nightcrawler. To me Jumper just didn't have much of a high concept - that is until I saw the trailer a couple of months ago and was blown away by it. Because teleportation in this film isn't like Nightcrawler from x-men who can only do relatively short distances, and it isn't like in Star Trek, where it is a mode of transportation and not central to the plot. This was a film about a person with the power to go anywhere he wants in the world on impulse. It's about someone having a power that gives them almost unlimited freedom... Too bad they made such a mess of it with the actual film itself.


The trailer looked amazing. You could see it was an action adventure with some really impressive set pieces, and the comic book geek in me got really excited about it. I didn't think it was going to be another run of the mill Hollywood special effects movie because of the people involved in making it. The director is Doug Lieman, who did Bourne Identity and Go (but also Mr and Mrs Smith, so maybe I should've approached the movie with some caution). One of the writers was David S Goyer, who co-wrote Batman Begins with Christopher Nolan, probably my favourite of all the superhero movies in recent years.However, quite soon into the film I started thinking that it seemed like it had been put together by a bunch of amateurs who for some reason had a huge budget to work with. They basically made a film that relied to heavily on its action set pieces, but didn't spend enough time in developing the characters and the emotional core of the movie.

The word that kept going through my head to describe this film was 'shallow'. They potentially had this great premise: To explore what someone would do, and what would happen to them, if they had these amazing powers. But they don't go very far with it. In fact most of these kinds of questions is covered in the first act before Samuel L Jackson turns up with that look on his face that he always does. You know the one: He closes one eye slightly, like he's squinting, and he eyeballs the protagonist in an attempt to act sinister, but instead, after doing this for so long in his films, it just comes across as comical now - get a new sinister face Samuel!

There was so much more they could've done with this movie. I expected there to be more of a relationship between him and the other jumper Griffin. Afterall they have a rare ability, but the main character David doesn't really seemed that suprised or bothered that he has found another person who is like him. I also thought they should've explored the villains and their intentions a lot more because they do have good reason to want to hunt jumpers. The kind of power a jumper has is easily abused, and all the way through the film both jumpers frequently abuse their abilities and there is never a moment when either of them perhaps question this. Some of what i've mentioned here does seem like it was considered in the script, and is touched upon in one or two moments in the film, but it's not really taken very far. Like a scene right near the beginning where David watches a news bulletin on TV about a flood where people are trapped and in trouble, but he doesn't even give it a second look and instead takes a trip to London to get off with some woman. In some ways this was nice to see, because if your average person was to get some sort of superpower his first thought wouldn't be to put on some tights and help some people, it would be "right, how can I make some money outta this?" But they don't attempt to address this issue any further, when they easily could've with the films villains the 'Paladins'. Instead they are an ancient religeous order dedicated to hunting down and exterminating all jumpers because they have a power that only "god" can have.

But even all that wouldn't have mattered so much if they had just spent more time developing the characters and their relationships with one another. The film was so emotionally vacant, the characters were barely even one dimensional, and aside from the protagonist you don't really find out that much about them. The character of Griffin seemed like he could have an interesting past, and while it's hinted at and you could possibly fill in the gaps, you wanted to know a little more about him and why he is the person he is. It was just bad writing.

So to sum it up, Jumper was a film that delivered far less than it could've done, relying on some entertaining set pieces and fun action scenes in an attempt to dazzle audiences past the fact that it lacks any sort of interesting emotional or moral story at the centre of it.