Jumper: A Good Concept Badly Executed

Jumper is a film that takes a fascinating concept, the idea that there are people who are able to teleport anywhere in the world that they can visualize at will, and then ruins in with poor execution.

David, a somewhat social inept, awkward teenager played at first by Max Theriot and then for most of the film by Hayden Christensen, discovers that he can teleport after encountering a life threatening situation. He takes advantage of this new gift by fleeing his somewhat loser father (his mother had left ten years before) and moving to New York.

David decides to help himself to the contents of bank vaults, where he can teleport in and out of, in order to finance what becomes eight years later as a very luxurious lifestyle. At first his life seems idyllic. He can go anywhere in the world at a blink of an eye, have lunch on top of the Sphinx, pick up a woman in a London pub, have his way with her and be gone before she wakes up, and then surf the waves off a tropical island.

Naturally, this being a film, this cannot last. David soon finds that there is a cabal of people calling themselves the "Paladins" who have sworn to wipe out all "Jumpers" (i.e. people who can teleport.) They seem to have been obsessed with this mission since Medieval times. They have learned that by shooting electricity through the bodies of Jumpers, with cattle prods and tasers, they can temporarily disrupt their ability to teleport and thus close in for the kill.

The Paladins are led by Roland, played with a pissed off zest by Samuel L. Jackson. Roland seems to have the ability to pose as any type of government agent, NSA, CIA, even IRS.

David, in the meantime, hooks back up with his old High School sweetie Millie, played by Rachel Bilson. He alson meets another Jumper, Griffin, played by Jamie Bell, who hunts Paladins with the same fervor with which they hunt him.

It is a sad duty to report that Hayden Christensen has not improved his acting chops since the time he played Anakin Skywalker, the future Darth Vader, as a spoiled brat teenager., But miscasting is just a minor problem with Jumper.