Related Links

• AV Club Blog

More Movies

• Review: Hit man comedy 'In Bruges' mixes laughs, blood
• Coen brother, 'Old Men' top picks for Oscars
• Review: 'Be Kind Rewind' has funny bits, but not enough

MOST RECENT TRIB STORIES

• ABQTrib.com to remain available
  08:48 a.m., February 25, 2008
• Congressman is indicted
  08:37 a.m., February 23, 2008
• Series of attacks target Green Zone
  08:36 a.m., February 23, 2008
• Iran is defying U.N., agency says
  08:35 a.m., February 23, 2008
• Waterboarding approval probed
  08:34 a.m., February 23, 2008

TRIB IN THE BLOGOSPHERE*

• Ty Murray Invitational thrills fans in Albuquerque
• Is Rome Burning?
• Ominous Skies
• The Road to Invalidation
• Albuquerque company participates in “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition”

*Note: The Tribune does not create and is not responsible for the blogosphere's headlines and stories. These links to blogs talking about ABQTrib.com are automatically generated. Use them at your own risk.

STORY TOOLS

• E-mail story
• Comments
• iPod friendly
• Printer friendly

SHARE THIS STORY [?]

An awful creative decision stonewalls "Jumper," rendering what could have been a special action film into a gooey snoozer periodically boosted by nifty special effects.

Jumpers are Gen-Y pretty boys lucky enough to have been born with teleporting power. A jumper can be standing in his New York living room one second, then eating a sandwich on top of the Sphinx's head the next. When no one's around, they don't need stairs.

There are two jumpers in "Jumper." One is Griffin (Jamie Bell), a freedom fighter in the war against Paladins (we'll get to them in a bit). Griffin — a scruffy Irish dude — first began teleporting when he was 5.

Though it's only hinted at, his past is filled with unspeakable tragedy. He has awesome killing skills, including a move where he grabs a Paladin, teleports high into the air and drops him to his death. He'll also teleport a bad guy into the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.

Griffin is jaded and physically scarred, but he's funny. He knows and hates the Paladin leader, Roland (Samuel L. Jackson). There's history between the two; we know this only because Griffin's "lair" is littered with unflattering sketches of Roland, with words like "Kill" and "Die" scribbled across them.

The other jumper is David Rice (Hayden Christensen). David is shy and awkward when he teleports for the first time at 15. He has a crush on a cute girl named Millie, but the bullies tease him. When he discovers his ability, he leaves his single dad alone and starts robbing banks.

Now rich and in his 20s, David spends his days hitting on girls in Paris or scoping out London from a perch on the face of Big Ben. He's not funny at all, and when Roland crashes his bachelor pad he escapes, reconnects with Millie (Rachel Bilson), flies to Rome —first class —and sleeps with her within a few hours. Then he starts getting attacked and has to put her back on a plane home without saying why. They both cry.

So, one jumper uses his powers to fight at the front lines of a war against stone-faced goons with crazy weapons. The other uses his power to steal money for designer clothes and to get laid.

Griffin is the supporting player here, which is such a bad move. It doesn't seem fair that the hardened warrior with a sharp tongue gets ancillary status so we can watch David, a confused wuss, bumble his way through weightless romance.

There's also a rescue mission after — who could've guessed? — Millie gets kidnapped.

David is boring and unlikable, so casting Christensen in the role works well. The unforgivably bad new "Star Wars" movies somehow propelled this wooden frat boy into stardom. It can't last much longer.

The stakes are too high to be worrying about whether David can get revenge on a high school bully. The Paladins are a group of religious nuts led by Roland, whose hair (cropped close and dyed white) is actually more stupid than his name.

Roland and the Paladins hunt down jumpers so he can tell them "only God should have the power to be everywhere at once" before killing them with his special stabbing knife.

Griffin tells David the Paladins are after them because they resent jumpers' ability to do whatever they want. The radical Muslim parallels end there, unfortunately, because there's PG-13 kissing to be had.

The teleporting effects, admittedly, are quite cool. And the fight sequences (including one filmed inside Rome's Colosseum) are packed with big, inspired action. A fist fight between Griffin and David may be the first on film to take place literally all over the world.

But cool effects will simply never be enough.

Compelling conflict? Relevance? Most special-effects blockbusters have none at all. "Jumper" has both and doesn't care.