What if you had the power to teleport anywhere? Where would you go? What would you do (especially if you knew that no prison could hold you)? Well when 15 year old David Rice first learns that he can teleport, he teleports into a bank vault and steals some money. Eventually, he’s living the high life. His home is a penthouse filled with “treasures”. He can go to Milan for breakfast, Puerto Vallarta for lunch, and finish his day in London before going to bed in his own place. That is until a group of religious zealots calling themselves “Paladins” come a-calling. Naturally, David runs after his initial encounter, but once he meets a fellow teleporter (or Jumper, as they are called) named Griffin, he begins to discover a whole new side of his world.
The film is hard for me to define in terms of “great” or “abysmal”. It had a lot of high points and low points for me. To begin with, the special effects for the jumps were spectacular. Watching David and Griffin “jump” around was such a feast for the eyes. I never got tired of it.
Also of note was the acting. It’s amazing to learn that after the years of poor direction and terrible scripts from George Lucas, Hayden Christensen can really perform. Not only does he make you like David, despite his apathy, poor decisions and lack of common sense, but he makes you want to continue following David’s story. Granted, part of that is the script. But if you’ve got a bad actor speaking the lines, that can ruin even the greatest lines of dialogue. Diane Lane also turns in a wonderful performance (it’s just a shame that she was hardly used in this film). And then there’s Samuel L. Jackson as David’s nemesis, Roland. The entire cast did a great job.
The only real problem I have with the film is the script. The writers are clearly fans of comic books (as evidenced by the subject matter and the fact that they reference the old “Marvel Team-Up” comic multiple times), but as a result it feels like they just used the standard “origin and introductory super-hero adventure” for their script. That’s not to say that it’s a bad script (because it’s not). There were quite a few scenes that were just exciting and entertaining to watch. My issue stems from the fact that I’ve seen this before in a myriad of first issues, mini-series, and TV series pilots. There was very little, in terms of the narrative, which was new or different.
Overall, it’s a solid film, but I’m really not sure if I’ll pick it up when it comes out on DVD. If it gets made into a trilogy (which they’ve hinted that it might) and the other two parts are well done, I may pick up a boxed set of the trilogy, but for now, I think I’ll wait. But if I see it on TV when I’m channel surfing, I’ll definitely put the remote down and watch it.
