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Jumper (2008)

Friday, May 29, 2009

Jumper. Feature film. (2008, 88 mins) IMDB

...oh for the chance at a new screenplay...

A

teenaged boy discovers he can jump through space, dematerialize from say New York City and in a flash rematerialize in Egypt next to the Giza pyramids. It's a neat trick and a neat premise, but it doesn't make for much of a story.

It's not a story because where's the trouble in being able to jump around the world? There is none. Life is good for our hero. To create a story, Paladins are created. There's regular humans, Jumpers and Paladins. The later two have been fighting a private war for centuries. Paladins are out to track down and kill the Jumpers.

Not much is ever explained and therefore the resulting action has little meaning. That's the point of the movie--create action sequence after action sequence. It's effective and good looking, lots of CGI that isn't obvious, but since there's little underlying story, the action becomes repetitive and boring.

There is also a love interest that is completely unbelievable. In the opening sequence, our hero gives a snow dome to the love interest. A bully intercedes, takes the dome away, taunts them and throws it away. The scene is so lame, so dreary. Couldn't they come up with something original and interesting? In an attempt to retrieve the dome, our hero walks on the thin ice of a river. With no surprise he goes under and presumably dies--that's what everyone thinks, except he lives because he can jump from one point in space to another.

Flash forward five years. Our hero returns to the small town, finds the love interest and they reconnect as if nothing happened. It's completely unbelievable and unrealistic.

The film is a great disappointment because given this premise, there are so many possible storylines that would have been much more interesting and important.

Posted 2009/05/29 at 19h59ET in Movie Commentary.

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