Imagine that you could go anywhere in the world in the merest blink of an eye.. Leave your New York apartment in the morning, seconds later pick up a girl in a London pub for the night, and before she has woken up go off surfing in Mexico or in Fiji, take breakfast ( Or is it lunch?) on the head of the Sphinx, and get back home for the evening with no - one the wiser as to where you have been.. Or, if you like, empty a bank vault without having to go through the inconvenience of breaking in or out..

Rated: [ M ] Moderate sci - fi violence, infrequent moderate coarse language

Cinema release: 14th February 2008

Running time: 88 minutes

Stars: Hayden Christensen, Rachel Bilson, Jamie Bell, Samuel L. Jackson

These are the powers of a ‘ jumper,’ and ever since troubled David Rice ( Hayden Christensen ) discovered them in his teens, he has been leading a shadow - life of hedonistic escapism - until, that is, the jumper - hunting ‘ paladin ‘ Roland ( Samuel L. Jackson ) appears with an arsenal of rather unusual weapons to remind David that actions always leave a trail of consequences.. Relentlessly pursued across the globe by Roland, David joins forces with another jumper called Griffin ( Jamie Bell.. Or as most people would know him from, Billy Elliot.. ) - all the while trying to keep his secret from his childhood sweetheart Millie ( OC’s Rachel Bilson ).. The truth, however, will out, and the time is fast approaching for David to stop running..

The problem with all of this is that Liman never stops to make any sense of it.. We get a good feel for David, but never any notion of who or what this secret group is, why they’re attacking him, or how they’re able to find him in the first place.. Most of what happens in the film happens simply because it’s written that way.. It’s almost as if the movie needed to be longer.. It touches on too many different subplots and never really resolves any of them.. The movie sets itself off on a certain path, and that path leads absolutely nowhere.. And so what could have been an interesting science fiction adventure ends up as a fun, but ultimately unsatisfying adventure flick..

While offering much out - of - the - box promise, the film’s incredible special effects and enviable locations don’t make up for the simplistic plot.. Any chance for the film to explore a number of contemporary issues is never truly realised as potentially emotional scenes fail to engage the drama of the situation..

Jumper is fun though, and maybe that’s enough to justify seeing it.. Some of the action sequences are moderately thrilling, even if they don’t seem to really mean anything.. Samuel L. Jackson is wasted, but the teleportation effects are cool and Hayden is adequate as a spoiled man - child turned pseudo - hero.. It’s an empty special effects flick which had the potential to be better than it is, but it’s so riddled with plot holes that it never musters up the mental energy to actually be better.. Sometimes thrilling, occasionally confounding, Jumper is a great concept which seems to only have half of a script, cut up into bits and pieces..

The power of jumping is also, of course, the power of editing, and from the intertwining narratives of Go to the globe - trotting espionage of The Bourne Identity, director Doug Liman has long proved adept at weaving an illusion of unity out of multiple locations and time - frames.. As a consequence, the teleportation superheroics of his latest film Jumper serve on one level to dramatise the inner workings of Liman’s own skills as filmmaker.. Sure, the characters here defy physics and logic with their instantaneous leaps through space, but even when they are called upon to travel by more conventional means of transport, a 10 - hour plane flight from Detroit to Rome is still compressed into a few seconds of screen - time thanks to the magical economy with which Liman cuts his sequences together..

Jumper takes a pretty cool sci - fi idea, but doesn’t quite seem to know what to do with it.. On the surface it should be a stronger film.. Everything’s there, but director Doug Liman, helming his first film since 2005’s success Mr. & Mrs. Smith, never puts all the pieces together..

Jumper certainly does race along, culminating in a delirious chase - and - fight sequence whose settings prove eye - bogglingly mercurial - but the film is ultimately let down by its own belatedness.. Hasn’t Spiderman already shown us an adolescent hero learning that ” with great power comes great responsibility?” And haven’t we already seen both ‘ jumping ‘ skills, and cat - and - mouse business between empowered mutants and the organisations devoted to destroying them, not only in the X - Men series but also more recently in television’s Heroes - both of which offer a much more varied range of powers and personal dramas than are on offer here?

By comparison with these antecedents, Jumper feels poorly - knitted and flimsy.. The characters are not quite interesting enough to carry the plot on their own, their moral dilemmas are nothing new, the action and effects merely beef up what is really just one long chase, and there is the sense that we are witnessing the ‘ origins ‘ story for a projected franchise rather than a film in its own right.. Given that its most interesting development does not emerge until the very last scene, Jumper never really seems, for all its spatial to - ing and fro - ing, to get up and moving properly.. Perhaps it should have been called Hopper..

One of the most valued assets in film production is a producer’s ability to know her or his target audience.. Yet, while the creators of the new Doug Liman action movie Jumper should be applauded for their ability to sell adolescent fantasies wrapped in sexy special effects, the film is ultimately brought down by this narrow pandering to style over substance..

For director Doug Liman, sci - fi is really the only genre he is yet to conquer, or try to conquer, and was thus a logical next step in a successful career.. He’s done dramedy ( Swingers ), action ( The Bourne Identity ) and crime - comedy ( Mr. and Mrs. Smith ), all with nice results.. Well apparently he’s found his kryptonite: sci - fi ( If this movie can truly be classified as such ).. Jumper, based on Steven Gould’s novel of the same name, is all about the snappiness that has become Liman’s signature, but it’s actually far too quick and light on details in an age where Lost and Heroes fanboys and girls demand much more than special effects.. The movie is itself something of a Jumper, quick to use its premise as an escape route when things could potentially get intriguing.. Surprisingly, the empty story can be attributed partly to two contemporary masters of genre screenwriting, David S. Goyer ( Batman Begins, The Dark Knight ) and Simon Kinberg ( Mr. and Mrs. Smith, X-Men: The Last Stand ), as well as Jim Uhls ( Fight Club ).. But ultimately, the hollow look and feel of Jumper - including its second - rate special effects - falls on Liman, who completely blows an opportunity to adapt a concept loaded with big - screen potential..

Comic books and movies are different.. That’s a lesson Jumper needs to learn.. The inspirations are clear - from the sci - fi concept to the comic references peppered throughout the script ( Which was co - written by David S. Goyer, one of the leading figures in the Great Comic - Book Movie Renaissance ).. But different structures make comics and movies good choices for different things.. Jumper tries to be both an exciting action adventure and a character - driven piece.. If it was a long - running comic series, Jumper could have expanded characters without sacrificing the adventure.. But as it stands, this movie is a choppy, uneven product that fails to live up to its substantial potential..

Instead of delivering an epic fight at the climax of the film, everything seems to get resolved in the blink of an eye and wrapped up for us in a neat little package.. It’s pretty obvious that they wanted to set things up for a sequel, but in doing so they made the same mistake that The Golden Compass did: the first movie is just not fulfilling enough on its own merit to get us hooked and wanting more..

As a ‘ superhero ‘ film, this shies away from the traditional structure that we’ve become so familiar with after the Spiderman films..

As such, we don’t see the young man growing to take on the responsibilities of the world and sacrifice his own happiness.. Exactly the opposite.. David patently ignores opportunities to help people nor does he learn to transfer self interest to self awareness.. He’ a selfish little brat, and remains so for the film.. Samuel L. Jackson’s Roland is in the traditional good guy position of criminal hunter, but he’s so bloodthirsty and single - minded that he smacks more of religious wacko than dogged investigator..

Thus antagonist and protagonist are only designated by who’s slightly worse.. It’s a fresh ( And bold ) approach to the superhero genre, but without character development, without that essential likeability, the result seems only fit to be the first episode in a TV series, or, more probably, a film series, given the weighty location and CGI budget..

This is the shame of the film - with such a singular ability to go all over the world, and having spectacular ( And diverse ) locations and geography (And topography ) swish by in the blink of an eye, you need something to cling to with these characters, otherwise the effect is like tuning into a Grand Prix race half way through.. You really don’t care who wins, just so long as there’s some action.. Just because someone is being hunted, isn’t always enough for us to identify with them.. There’s a catastrophic underestimation of the audience’s attention span, and as a result, the film falls flat..

The actors’ performances are uniformly lacklustre; Samuel L. Jackson, is his usual eternally cool self, and is predictably suburban.. Hayden Christensen is unable to emote on seemingly any level, the artist formerly known as Anakin is so wooden he plays David like a twentysomething Pinocchio.. The normally excellent Jamie Bell struggles with a frankly ridiculous character and Rachel Bilson looks good but fails to engage as the love interest whose only job seems to be to slow proceedings down.. Yet the film’s biggest disappointment comes from an unshakable feeling it is little more than a rushed pilot for a hopefully better - developed drama.. Tune in next week for the deep characterisation and in - depth back stories.. It’s a curiously under - developed affair that leaves too many questions unanswered and ends on a completely under - whelming note.. It’s also vastly different from Gould’s darker source material, both in terms of concept and character development..

Perhaps the TV / film series will allow for character development - certainly this film is constructed with several open endings and no resolution - making it even less satisfying as a single piece of entertainment..

The overall impression Jumper leaves is much the same as the first X - Men movie: there are plenty of good ideas, and enough going on for a satisfying experience, yet nothing catches or coheres in quite the way you wish.. In short, this feels like a good prologue to a bigger event.. Here’s hoping that, as X - Men did, this leads to a sequel that can lace its precursor’s loose strands into something spectacular..

The beginning of something big? Perhaps.. A completely satisfying film? Not quite.. Worth a look? Definitely.. The potential was there; it just didn’t turn out right.. While clearly a film that will captivate its target teen audience, Jumper lacks the sufficient sophistication to develop into anything more than a pubescent effects - fest.. I give Jumper 3 out of 5..