'Jumper'
reviewed by Martin McGrath

Jumper seems to have attracted a pretty hostile response from reviewers and fans of the original book. I haven’t read Gould’s book, though anyone adapting material from a children’s book is facing an uphill struggle as such books tend to have a heavier emotional connection with readers who may have read the book a dozen times and have very strict ideas about what their hero and their world should be like.

First Theiriot (admirably) and then Christensen (a little less engagingly) play David, a young man who, in a moment of crisis, discovers he has the power to teleport and so escapes an abusive life at home and his small town background to become a carefree playboy and bank robber. His idyllic life – popping from London to Egypt to New York and back in a day – is suddenly disrupted by the arrival of Roland (Jackson), a silver-haired Paladin who pursues his religious order’s determination to wipe out teleporters with a psychopathic determination. David escapes home and reunites with his first love (Bilson) before fleeing to Rome. There he meets Griffin (Bell), a fellow jumper who has dedicated himself to fighting back against the Paladins. The two form an uneasy alliance against Roland as extravagant, special effects driven, set-pieces explode from the screen.

Director Liman – who previously has had a more or less unblemished critical record (passing over the unfortunate Mr & Mrs Smith) with Swingers, Go and The Bourne Identity – plays this as a straight adventure story. Jumper has plenty of eye candy during the lengthy action sequences as the teleporters jump around the world or struggle against Roland and his followers. But the price of all this is that the human side of the story is lost.

Part of the blame rests with director Liman – who clearly chooses to play up the spectacular – and the multi-authored script seems to deliberately shy away from imbuing the core characters with any depth. David, for example, discovers that his long-missing mother is part of the Paladin’s organisation, but the revelation (and a final ‘confrontation’) is handled so shallowly that you wonder why it was included in the story at all.

The performances don’t help either. Christensen is no less wooden than he was in his Star Wars incarnation, while Bell is utterly unbelievable and profoundly annoying as the chippy Griffin. The superior supporting cast (Jackson, Lane and Rooker) are given too little to work with to make a memorable or significant impression.

Jumper is not a disaster, it’s 88 minutes zip past quickly enough and the action sequences are spectacular and entertaining enough to make the film an inoffensive popcorn experience. Just don’t expect it to stay with you fifteen minutes after you leave the cinema.