Review of Jumper (2008) by Rated N — 30 Mar 2018

The concept behind Jumper is a pretty cool one. After discovering his ability to teleport in an incident with a school bully, David Rice uses his new found ability to escape the life he has with his abusive father. Fast forward 8 years and he's living a life of luxury brought through bank robbery and spending his day visiting several locations throughout the world. His actions catch the attention of a mysterious group called the Paladins though and he quickly gets dragged into a battle for survival. It could have been fun but unfortunately so little effort was put into developing the plot beyond the basics that it ended up as a hollow bore.

No time is spent explaining why the Paladins want to kill Jumpers so the whole purpose of the film is left unexplained. It's also clear that several scenes that explained happenings in the film were just left on the cutting room floor. That's not acceptable from any film but it's even worse given that Jumper is only 88 minutes long.

Alongside the plot, the characters are also poorly developed. Jamie Bell's character is given no backstory his motives and character remain unclear throughout. Worse still though, Rachel Bilson is there for no reason other than to be the damsel in distress whilst Diane Lane is only present for franchise building. Worst of all though Is Hayden Christensen as David Rice. No attempt is made to develop his character so he just remains an unlikeable asshole throughout the film and as a result, it's hard to want him to succeed.

On the plus side, there are some decent action sequences but that isn't enough to save this from being a painful bore.