Review: Jumper

When I was about 14, I rediscovered a love for baseball. I
considered trying out for my high school baseball team even though I hadn’t
played in about two years. I wanted to practice so that I could make the team,
and I constantly asked my younger sister to play catch with me. She was, at the
time, playing softball and therefore accustomed to that type of ball. She
refused to play catch with a hardball.

I mean, she was a twelve year old
girl. They’re even afraid of periods! Right, guys!?

I always used to imagine how fun it
would be to be able to teleport instantly and play catch with myself. I
imagined that my reflexes would be incredibly good after this type of practice
and that I could make (as I probably referred to them at the time) “wicked
awesome plays.”

Jumper, for me wasn’t so
much a poorly executed action movie starring the horrendous Hayden Christensen.
It was one which suffered from a surfeit of creativity. Nearly every instance
of teleportation was used to vacation somewhere like Rome, and fight scenes
were crappy and far between. Where were the nasty mid-air teleportation aerobics?

But wait (you might say)! Isn’t
that the movie where there’s a secret society of people who can teleport
anywhere on the Earth instantly? And people are out to kill them!? AND SAMUEL
L. JACKSON IS HUNTING THEM!!?? AND HE WAS A HUGE BADASS IN PULP FICTION
(among other acclaimed films) AND THEREFORE WILL BE ONE IN THIS PARTICULAR
MOVIE!!!!!????

That was, of course, the case.
However, never in my life could I imagine that this concept could be wasted on
such a stupid, adolescent premise. Phillip K. Dick once wrote that, when
considering the numerous short stories of science fiction he had written, it
occurred to him that the main character of each was the idea of the
story. Unfortunetly, Jumper’s director, Doug Liman chose not to
concentrate his film on teleporting. Rather, he elected to make the basis of
the movie an actor with all the charisma of an Abercrombie and Fitch model. To
wit:

Hayden Christensen (I have no
trouble admitting) is a fairly attractive man/boy. Pouty lips and somewhat
piercing eyes converge to give us a creature capable of moistening the pants of
man and woman alike. However: the moment his mouth opens, one is given the
impression that he is an eleven year old child who desperately wants to take a
shit but realizes that big boys don’t make no doo-doos in their underoos. He
has but two expressions: bemused poker face and sweaty anxiety. I suppose that
they were enough for George Lucas to portray Darth Vader. Ba-dum cha!

I feel that it is necessary to also
discuss Hayden’s love interest, Rachel Bilson. Besides cursing the state of
human society (or my own perverse curiosity) for the fact that I knew her name
off the top of my head, I had trouble discerning exactly what she was.
For the first twenty minutes that she appeared on the screen, I could not make
up my mind whether or not she was a beautiful woman/girl or a corpse-zombie.
She’s got all the right parts: buxom derriere, pouty lips, big eyes, vacuous
expression. But besides failing to give one the impression that there’s any
emotion behind her eyes, the director also fails to make her a human being.
What I mean by this: I am hard pressed to describe one tangible attribute of
her character in the movie. Seriously.

Many in the hay-making business
will make much hay about my failure to mention Samuel L. Jackson already. I can
hear the hybrid professional film reviewer/wasted college Joe’s reaction now:
“Dude! That movie was pretty lame. But Samuel L. Jackson was SUCH badass! He didn’t take any shit! He fucking MADE the movie!”

Admittedly, the best part of the
film was Samuel’s look when he was at one point bested by Hayden. He crossed
his arms and rolled his eyes, as if to say, “Yeah. Real clever. But you did NOT just teleport my ass all the way to the Grand Canyon! Man, if I don’t find you
(punk!), I hope something brutal happens to you!” Credit is due for Mr.
Jackson’s conveyance of this sentiment simply through body language. Or perhaps
I read too much into it and his character simply remembered that he hadn’t
cleaned his cat’s litter box in over a month. Regardless (no matter what some
commentators might try to convince you of), there is no actor capable of
salvaging the worst movies. Samuel L. Jackson is no Christopher Walken, but
even he couldn’t make this watchable.

Alexander Pope once said: “No
matter how thin you slice it, it’s still bologna.” There isn’t a single cross
section of Jumper one can sample to cite a redeeming value. Concept:
butchered. Acting: fuck you. Sex appeal: necrophilia? Samuel L. Jackson: going
through the motions. The movie’s most enjoyable moment took place when Hayden
(as a teenager and before discovering his powers of teleportation) encounters a
bully who throws a snow globe he wanted to give to a young Rachel Bilson onto a
frozen pond. An older woman sitting next to me gasped and said: “Ooooh…What a
jerk! Punch him RIGHT in the head!”

I already wanted to, ma’am. I
already wanted to.