Jumper: Not The Sweater You Hoped For

Everybody loves the concept of teleportation. The ability to just focus on someplace in your mind and instantly travel there. What if one day you actually could just do that? Where would you go and what would you do? In the movie Jumper, adapted from the book written by Steven Gould and directed by Doug Liman, you get to see exactly what Hayden Christensen’s character David would do with these powers. That is, until he finds out there are others like him.

Apparently the concept is that these people can just think about where they want to be and they’re there. But over the years there have been a good number of “Jumpers” and of course they have abused their powers. So in comes a group of individuals who have charged themselves with dispensing  with these people. Maybe I missed something, but couldn’t they just, you know, “jump” away and not get caught?

It’s hard to try and convince me that this movie is going to be worth seeing. With awful commercials attempted before the Superbowl with Samuel L. Jackson who plays Roland, an NSA agent, the leading actor being none other then Waaaahnakin Skywaker, and Rachel Bilson providing decent eye-candy, I’m not sure the concept behind it will overcome those obstacles. No matter how cool it would be to teleport, even Marvel Comics figured out that it wouldn’t be enough as a power so the made Nightcrawler into a blue demon (or elf, if you ask Wolverine).

With a name like “Jumpers”, all I can think about is the bouncy chair my mother use to strap me into when I was a kid. Even that sounds more interesting to revisit than this movie.