Jumper
I am not ashamed to say that I was totally looking forward to watching movie. When it came out on DVD I was literally jumping (oi, unintended pun) with anticipation. I am however EXTREMELY disappointed with the story of this movie. Oh where to begin...
First off, why, why, why, does there has to be a girl in every potentially great action film, they just get in the way of EVERYTHING, do i need you to refer you to my friend Jiraffe8 about Twilight and Bella. The love story wasn't even that great. They know each other. Guy goes missing. They meet again. Guy takes girl to Italy. They have hot sex. Fall in love. Girl is used against guy...gah and the relationship moved too fast, but then again since the action is fast paced, the people in relationships have to correlate. Honestly I just thought she just got in the way I think that the story would have held its own and been even better with out the girl playing such a large role. I was much more interested in David Rice's (Hayden Christiansens) road to illumination after he realizes that he is not the only "Jumper" in the world. Which leads into my next complaint.
Where does this story go in the course of the whole 2 hours? The young boy starts out troubled and emotionally scarred from his mother’s sudden desertion and his fathers alcoholism. Once he is free with his powers de uses them to its potential by basically stealing from people for 10 years. I mean one can clearly see that at the beginning he doesn't use his powers unless it's for his benefit. I was expecting him to make a clear transition and realize that helping people with his ability would better the name of his "people" but he doesn't. David Rice's character stays the same from the beginning to the end of the movie. Yes he reconciled with his parents, but both his parents made big sacrifices to keep him alive and he honors them by still exploiting his powers for...himself and now his girl. I don't know, maybe I have to read the book to see if this is what the author intended it to come out like this but I was totally disappointed with the plot. I wanted more of the struggle with the jumpers and the jumper catching... people.
Overall the acting was fine, there was no glitches and Hayden Christiansen has proved that the writing of George Lucas can make any actor act, suboptimal. Not much on film chemistry going on with the leading lady. Sure their was more physical aspect to the movie than the drama, but I didn't see anything wrong with the delivered lines. The directing was good, I mean at least it wasn't hand held camera and headache induced cinematography.
For the most part the film did what it was suppose, be entertaining and rake in money. And overall it was what it was suppose to be and B rated film, but in my opinion if they wanted to really make a profit they should have released it in the summer cause it certainly seemed like a movie watched during the summer time.
Please don't flame me if i offended anyone, as you can see I'm in a ranty mood. Comments and critiques are always welcome.