Jumper: Good Idea, Lousy Acting

Cafe Society
1

I saw it last night in an almost-empty theater. Mostly younger people. I just wanted a brainless popcorn flick, and that’s what I got out of it, happily.

The idea was good. The effects were amazing, and it made teleportation seem like the coolest and most useful power ever. Rachel Bilson was cute.

That’s all the praise I can really give the film. It didn’t have much character development. I mean, he acted the way someone with that gift might, nervous and impatient, but he really wasn’t much diffirent at the end than he was at the beginning. Rachel Bilson pretty much played Rachel Bilson the way she always does, and Hayden Christensen was Anakin. I liked the actors for their young versions much more than the adults. In the same vein, Sam Jackson was really just Sam Jackson with white hair in this film. Diane Lane was good for the 10 minutes of screentime she had, and Michael Rooker was Henry, Portrait of a Serial Killer if he’d married Diane Lane and not been as nuts (and I still wanted to see more of him). Amusingly, they hired Kristen Stewart for a pointless and tiny cameo.

In conclusion, it wasn’t anything amazing except for the effects, and the part up to Hayden Christensen’s appearance was good. It felt like they pulled bits out of a book (which they did) but without any buildup, as if it was stuff you already should have known. Also they kind of shot themselves in the foot as far as a second movie, not that I’m begging for one.

2

But in the book he really didnt develop either. he was pretty much the same person as the beginning. About the only way he improved was realizing that in chosing his hideaway if he jumped back injured, he couldnt get in or out, and if he had someone in his cave and he died they were shit out of luck because they couldnt get in or out without him jumping them … so he made sure not to leave anybody else in his hidey hole when he wasnt there…

3

I saw it last night. It definitely delivered the awe of teleporting, my favorite super power (and indeed the coolest and most useful). The beginning and middle of the film were actually lots of fun, but the end felt rushed and muddled, with shaky-cam action sequences that made it hard to tell what was happening.

The Paladins were stupid, if you ask me – they had no explanation, no motive, and Roland (Samuel L.'s character) was hardly even a character. I could almost say the same for David (the protagonist), who was not likeable enough to be a hero, and not villainous enough to be a villain. He was kind of an amoral cypher, whereas I would have loved to see him abuse his powers and take advantage of people more, or practice using teleportation more to his advantage for fights and general trickery.

I guess what I still desperately crave is a good supervillain origin movie, where you empathize with a really horrible character but hate him nonetheless, and I had hoped Jumper could have been more like that. With that in mind, I liked Griffin, the paranoid, jaded, homicidal Jumper we met in the second act, but would have liked to learn more about him (and his accent made him very hard to understand, I thought).

Also, I was stunned that David kept going about his business, appearing in public in Ann Arbor and taking Millie to Rome, after he was “made” by Roland and got his ass kicked in his own apartment. That initial surprise defeat should have shaken up the entire world he built for himself over the last eight years, but he shrugged it off amazingly quickly, and went about his normal business like nothing happened. With a wake-up call like that, any normal, sane, smart person would have laid low and fallen off the radar, which he could easily have done with his powers and the money he brought with him.

The ending definitely set up at least one sequel, but I seriously wonder if this movie will prove successful enough to warrant one. For the record, I haven’t read any of the books. Are they actually good, at least as far as young adult novels go? Are they popular? I’m a librarian, and I ought to know more about hip YA lit.

4

What I meant by not changing was, for example: In the beginning he saw footage of people trapped by a flood. He shrugs it off. At the end, after the huge fight against the villain, he is…pretty much the same.

I haven’t read the books, but according to the wikipedia page there are huge differences between that and the movie. I could argue that his nonchalance about taking Milli to Rome was a result of his life; he can go anywhere at anytime, so why be worried? It was a blip that could be ignored. He’s a hedonist.

Griffin was good I thought as well, but I was amused that David totally missed Griffin’s big explanation of his tragedy.

5

I thought the movie had a cool premise and I wanted to like it but I ended up hating almost everything abiut it.

First of all, the main character is a smug, self-satisfied, entitled little asshole who learns no lessons and doesn’t change. He’s an unrepentant criminal – a bank robber – and I guess the audience is supposed to think that’s A-OK. He has no respect for the boundaries or antiquities of other countries. He a jerk to women. His jumps are always damaging property and he walks away without a second thought. There was just nothing likeable about the guy. I WANTED Sam Jackson to fuck his shit up.

The girl is a generic movie “girl” in every sense. She’s a mannequin who exists only to be put in danger so the hero (who is a little asshole in this movie) can rescue her. In this case, the girl is also an imbecile. A dude who supposedly died eight years earlier after she saw him fall through the ice on a frozen lake and never emerge shows up out of the blue at her workplace and asks her to go to Rome with him. She instantly agrees (little whore) without seeming that surprised to see him and without asking him why he wasn’t dead. Then (during what appears to be that same day) she flies to Rome with him and follows him around as he breaks into the Colosseum (entitled little scumbag), gets arrested, escapes from the cops and shows her a big giant bag of stolen money. She shows no real curiosity about any of this and even tells him, “that’s ok, you don’t have to tell me everything.” (what women in real life every actually says that?)

Then there are the innumerable plot holes and myriad stupidities. Why is Giza so deserted whle he sits on top of the Sphinx like a self-satisfied little asshole having a picnic? Since when is one of the busiest, most visited tourist sites in the world a ghost town in the middle of the day? Why doesn’t anybody ever seem that startled about these guys popping in and out of thin air all the time? Not even when they leave craters and destruction in their wake? Don’t even get me started on the Paladins. “Only God should have this power?” That’s their entire motivation for a centuries long crusade against jumpers? That’s kind of thin, isn’t it?

The one thing I did sort of like was Jamie Bell. He was sort of funny and cool and intelligent. He should have been the main character. Anakin should have been knifed in the first five minutes.

6

That summed up one of my problems that I tried to get across but apparently didn’t enough – David WAS an entitled little asshole, but I think he should have been worse. The writers still portrayed him as too likeable, just enough so audiences should have been rooting for him. You and I didn’t fall for it, but I wish they had gone even farther and made him even more morally bankrupt, even greedier and more entitled, with even more of a god complex and unwillingness to consider the consequences of his actions. Basically, it would have been a lot more interesting (and subversive) of a movie if he was just an unrepentant villain, and there was no clear “hero” in the entire film. Too bad Hollywood rarely has the guts to do that.

7

Agreed. If they’d gone all the way and made him a genuine anti-hero I could have gotten behind it. As it was, it seemed like the movie was either trying to have it both ways or (more likely in my view), just didn’t realize that he was coming off like such a jerk. I just kept thinking that the paladins had a point.

8

How was the book? The film looks good in the trailers but has been trashed by reviewers. Is the book any good?

9

I read the book after someone on this board recommended it. I really enjoyed it; the sequel not so much. Not interested in the movie since it seems that changed the plot so much and don’t care for Christensen at all (tho I do like Jamie Bell).

10

The book IS good. And very different from what I just read in this thread.
big breath and spoilers for the book
(I don’t write well and it’s been awhile since I’ve read the book, so maybe another Doper will post a better synopsis. My apologies!)

The book opens with Davy (17) about to be beaten for not having the lawn mowed by the time his (alcoholic) father came home. His father shoves him against the wall, takes off his belt and is just about to hit him when…Davy “jumps” to the local library (his favorite place).
Davy thinks he just blocked out what happened and runs away from home. For two weeks he hitchhikes and works odd jobs. He’s at a truck stop when a trucker offers him a lift. Davy accepts. They ride for a bit when the trucker heads down a lonely road to meet some buddies. They attempt to rape Davy who jumps, again to the library. This time Davy realizes what he can do. He jumps home, packs some things, takes some money from his dad and leaves for New York.
In New York he tries to do things the legal way, but is hampered by his lack of legal knowledge and any kind of paperwork (he couldn’t find anything at his dad’s place) so eventually he steals about a million dollars from a bank. After paying back his dad, he gets used to money and also starts experimenting with his jumping ability (learning he can only jump to places he’s been). He also meets Millie. They start to see each other and he tells her about his life, except for the jumping and robbery.
Little later he tries to contact his maternal grandfather, finds out that he died, and also some news about his mother who had left when he was younger. He gets in touch with her, finds out she’s a stewardness and they plan for her to visit him.
He wants to ask if she can also teleport, but never works up the courage (as far as he knows, he’s the only teleporter). He does tell his mother about Millie, and she thinks Millie’s a good young woman. His mom was in couseling and tries to talk him into also going; as family of an abusive, alcoholic man, they also have issues, but Davy isn’t receptive to the idea. Overall, it’s a good visit and they make plans to visit again.
While the above is happening (B plot?), a police officer has gotten very interested in Davy (Davy interfered with his wife beating and helped the wife get away). Davy realized that the officer had conviced his dept. to raid his apartment, so he finds another one and starts moving his stuff. In the middle of his moving, the police break in and when he jumps back he hears their conversation with Millie (oops). When he jumps back to talk to her, she says he lied, it’s over. He jumps away right in front of her.
A couple days later he gets very sick. Gets some meds but is still really out of it. He turns on the news and discovers that his mom has been killed in a terrorist attack. The guys had held the plane hostage, sent her out with a briefcase and blew her up after she’d exited the plane (all of which is shown on the news).
He goes a bit crazy after this and builds his desert retreat. He also starts hunting down terrorists trying to find the one that killed his mother, establishing jump points in major cities all over the world and subscribing to a news agency (book was written in 1992, so a bit pre-internet). Some time in here he starts attracting attention from the NSA. Davy also makes contact with Millie and tells her everything, even the robbery. She’s not happy about that (neither is he, really) but they start seeing each other again. They do some more experimenting with his jumping ability. She tells him if he’s going to go after terrorists, he needs to have some hospitals/trauma centers on his list of jump points.
He saves some people, comes to terms with the fact that he can’t save everyone and buys a huge fishtank to ward off the traqulilizers the NSA try to take him out with. (Some time in here I know his grandfather’s lawyer tells the NSA about him and when they trap him, he jumps in panic, realizing how stupid that was almost immediately afterward. Once they realize his ability they start in with the tranqs).
The lead NSA agent (whose name in the book is Brian Cox, I thought it’d be brilliant if they could get the actor to play him just on the name basis, but ah well) tries to talk him into coming and working with the NSA, Davy jumps the agents trying to take him out all over the world.
Brian then gets Millie and “holds” her in custody. Davy finds the guy who killed his mother and takes him for a vertical trip just outside the World Trade Tower, considering suicide to help Millie, realizes it’s a bad plan and takes the guy to a place near his desert hideout. He then kidnaps Brian Cox, taking him to the same hideout and tries to talk him into returning Millie. Realizing the men he’s got are responsible for taking the women in his life away, he completes the trinity by taking his dad.
Things happen. He realizes he can’t kill the guy who killed his mom and he doesn’t really want to hurt Cox or his dad. He takes Cox back to DC, takes his dad home and signs him up for something like AA.
Cox, in an act of good faith, sets Millie free and helps arrange for Davy to return the terrorist guy. He and Davy also forge an agreement for Davy to help out in certain matters and for him to work on paying back the money he stole. When Davy asks Cox if he’s the only teleport, Cox replies that as far as he know, Davy’s alone.
Book ends on him still being a bit torn up for everything and this time, when Millie advises counseling, he says ok. Fin.
I think this is my longest post on SDMB. Whew.

11

***** Some minor spoilers below, nothing that will ruin any major plot points. Just complaints about some typical action-movie nonsense. *****

Jumper had the stupidest characters I’ve seen in a long time. At one point our Hero is hiding beind a column while his pursuer is in the room with him. He then sees a picture on the wall that surprises him, at which point he walks towards it and speaks to himself out loud! Shortly after that he stops to have a conversation with his girlfriend about nothing urgent while still very much in danger . . . while still, in fact, in the only room on Earth that his pursuer knows to look for him. Teleport first if you’re going to have a relationship talk.

Also, why is no one in the movie using firearms??? The Paladins are just out to kill the jumpers (not to catch them or anything), and they go about it by shooting electrified metal lasso things at them, as electricity prevents them from jumping, and then stabbing them while they’re trapped. Problem is, the jumpers are often able to teleport out of the way after the the things are fired, and even when they get hit with them they’re usually able to free themselves and teleport before they get stabbed (often because Samuel Jackson is busy giving a spech as he casually saunters over to the not-so-doomed individual).

So, first of all, they should be carrying guns. I mean, the first time the two leads meet, the protagonist is unaware of the presense of Sam Jackson, who verbally introduces himself from behind the jumper, gives a little speech, then tries to commit murder with his unnecessarily complex electric-wires-and-butcher-knives method. If he’d just had a pistol in his waistband he could have shot the guy in the back of the head. Bam. Samuel L. Jackson foils the bank robbing sorcerer. The End.

Second, if the Paladins insist on using their electrified whips and such, you’d think they put enough juice into them to kill the jumpers (or at least incapacitate them). As it is, jumpers ensnared by these weapons have no trouble carrying on conversations or, significantly, manipulating their limbs and digits with dexterity sufficient to free themselves.

Finally, with such brain-dead Paladins the teleporters really shouldn’t be in any danger at all, but they’re just as stupid. See above for a couple of examples, as well as the fact that the hero in this movie doesn’t know enough to lay low when he’s being hunted by people who obviously know a thing or two about him, mentioned elsewhere in this thread. And, of course, the jumpers – who know that they’re being hunted – would win every confrontation in the film in about 3 seconds if only they were smart enough to carry guns.
All that said, I didn’t hate the movie. It was mostly fine for what it was. One thing that was decidedly in its favor is that it didn’t waste time on exposition. The main characted is teleporting within about 3 minutes, and robbing banks within about 7.

12

I saw this movie on Thursday and had to watch it right in the front row (so I spent most of the film looking up Christiansen’s nostrils).

I enjoyed it, but then I wasn’t expecting a great deal to be honest. Teleportation is one of my “three wishes” powers so I was interested to see if the life they painted for Davey matched what I would do (it kind of did).

What really let the film down for me was the Paladins as they were simply generic bad guys with a holy cause. I agree that whole “only God should have that power” had me rolling my eyes so far I could see the back of my head. Also I’d like to know just where they get all the money and influence from to run such an operation - from the look of Davey’s mother’s house they’re very comfortably off.

The only thing that mystified me is why there weren’t more jumpers out hunting Paladins - it seems like a natural thing to do if someone is out to get you (and they certainly have the power to do it easily).

Anyway, on the whole enjoyable and I’m glad I saw it. I thought Hayden was acting a lot better than in Star Wars and think it’s a bit unfair to term him Annakin in this, but that’s just me.

13

Maybe you’re thinking of a different book. The one I read was all about the character’s maturation and working out of his personal problems (which started with an alcoholic, abusive dad and expanded to include cops, terrorists and the NSA).

I know it’s often not practical to make a movie an exact translation of the novel it’s based on, and a movie should be judged on its own merits. But I can’t imagine why they thought the lame “Paladins hunting Jumpers throughout history” storyline was more interesting than the original book.

I highly recommend the book; it’s a really thoughtful look at how a person might live in the real world if he had such an amazing ability. The sequel, Reflex, is good too. The prose style isn’t always great, but they’re very enjoyable reads.

14

the first 10 mins of X-Men 2 weigh more in the ‘cool’ factor for teleportation imho. beyond bank robbery, transporting people and things to inconvenient places and breaking everything, it offers nothing much new while also failing to explore the power for a sort of ‘flying’ ability (retrieving the falling remote) and ‘omnipresence’ (the fight in the Colosseum).

i didn’t read the book. about the film, ditto what most posted. when he said, “hey, i was seventeen, i didn’t know better” (paraphrased) when he first robbed the bank i thought we were told to expect him to develop to be a superhero, good guy character. i also kept expecting for more explanation on the paladin’s motives beyond the one-liner, but

15

OK I agree with some of our sentiments, but were we watching the same movie? Some of your gripes show you just weren’t paying attention…

Did you forget about the snowglobe he left for her on her swing, as well as his visit to his father?

She tells him that very early on, before most of the events you mention, each of which clearly makes her slowly more and more uncomfortable and suspicious. When he meets her back in the states, she outright rescinds her original statement and says that now she really does need to know what’s going on.

I easily noticed a bunch of touristy people walking about during these scenes, mentally calculating the viewing angle trying to decide if they could spot him from so far below or not.

16

Just got back from watching it. Lots of potential, but the wife noted that I kept checking my watch throughout the movie. So that’s a bad sign.

It seemed like the writers were working on developing something and then just took lunch without coming back. Almost like they were trying to create grounds for a sequel without finishing the movie. Jackson had to have been asking “Is this it?” when reading the script, if he read it.

The whole fight scene with Mark in Ann Arbor was sort of worthless, other than helping give away his relationship with the girl. But considering the Paladins found him, I doubt that they needed one drunken jackass to figure her out.

How did he absolutely obliterate the floor of the hospital and the library, but not do a bit of damage to the Sphinx? With the kind of force he leveled when he arrived, I would think the head would have crumbled.

17

Based on the other Jumps, I think they were implying that as he stresses out more, his jumps become eratic, and potentially dangerous. When he’s lounging at home, he can jump with no problem, but in a crisis situation, he tends to get… sloppy.

I enjoyed the movie a bit, as a mindless action popcorn flick. I followed it up with Persepolis (yay!) and then Rambo (wtf was I thinking?) so maybe my perception is skewed.

I would like to have seen a more lenghty movie with more development.

18

Saw this last night. Dreadful film.

It felt like a movie-length pilot for a tv series in that it raised a few interesting plot points which could be developed. But the screenplay was dreadful, I felt no emotion towards any characters, I was often unsure what was going on or why people were doing what they were doing, and it just seemed to peter out at the end.