A few random ramblings…

Hadn’t gotten out to the flicks in a couple of months. The last movie I’d seen on the big screen was Atonement and that was before Christmas.

So, understandably I was looking forward to this… after all, 2008 promises to be an awesome year in film, what with Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, The Dark Knight and Iron Man all coming out in the next few months.

And, as you can see from my choices in upcoming films, I’m a BIG fan of scifi and fantasy. My DVD collection has the obligatory copies of The Matrix, Blade Runner and the last four films in the Star Wars franchise (or the first three and the last one, depending on how you look at it… Episodes 3 to 6). And of course, the movies made of the comic books I read as a kid find a special place… even when they don’t entirely live up to expectations.

Which is why Jumper didn’t do too badly, for me…

I think the best movies are those we see without any expectation or preconception. Looking back at The Matrix as a great example, the reason it knocked the socks off of so many people was because it was a) radically different from anything we’d seen before, and b) had not built itself up beforehand. It came out of the gates at 100mph and we all went ‘WOW!’.

Of course, when the sequels came out, we all had the expectation of bigger, better, brighter, more more more… and many people were disappointed. Why? Because this time we expected the same ‘WOW!’ factor, and even thought Matrix: Reloaded and Matrix: Revolutions were good movies in their own right, neither had the impact of the first… because we were ready for them. We were expecting 100mph, so when they came out at 120mph, most people went ‘Cool… but it’s not quite winning me over like the first’.

Jumper had built little of this expectation… and this has worked in it’s advantage.

Because, on it’s merits, Jumper is a passable movie but one that only will see real value in it’s sequels. And therein is it’s Achilles Heel.

It NEEDS a sequel. In what feels like a pretentious tease, viewers are left wanting answers to a number of questions that the movie raises.

But I get ahead… because, like I said, it’s actually a decent flick.

The premise is simple. In this world there are people who can ‘jump’ through the fabric of space/time at will. This ability manifests itself at age 5 and seems to be triggered initially by some kind of traumatic event.

So, what would you do when faced with the ability to do something totally beyond the capacity of regular people? Don a mask and go off to fight crime, constantly putting your life in danger for all the risk and no reward?

Hell no… and neither does David, the main character in Jumper, played by Hayden Christensen (Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader from Episodes 2 and 3 of Star Wars). Instead he uses his ability to escape a nowhere town, a nowhere life and an abusive father who’s never recovered from David’s mother leaving him when David was 5… an important element in the latter half of the movie, but annoying, an element that whilst one question is answered, another 10 are raised.

David also uses his power, the ability to instantaneously ‘jump’ from one place to any place he has seen, to rob banks… lots of banks… and lives a playboy life of leisure and luxury as consequence of his ill gotten gains.

And this eventually catches the attention of the wrong people… oh, his activities are on the law enforcement community’s radar, that’s for sure, but it’s the films antagonists that eventually come knocking on his door.

A group of religious fanatics, called Paladins, hunt and kill Jumpers, and have been doing so for centuries. Led by Roland (played ever so menacingly and fanatically by Samuel L. Jackson) they use modern technology to snare their prey and prevent them from jumping away, usually with several thousand volts of electricity.

Which left me wondering, if these Paladins have been doing this for centuries, how difficult must the job have originally been before they had all their Bond and Batman inspired toys?

But of course, the Jumpers don’t take this lying down, and eventually we find out that a war has raged for as long as each has existed.

Jumper very quickly becomes an out and out action flick, with very little in the way of story depth or character development. The special effects are a veritable visual wet dream for anyone after an effects-fest. The story, however, teases the viewer with just enough to keep you interested for the 88 minute duration and wanting more at the end. Questions of the history of the Jumpers and Paladins, how the Jumpers actually do what they do and various other story elements (which I won’t divulge for fear of spoiling the movie) are left for the inevitable, and obviously preplanned, sequel.

Which, for me, raises a few questions in and of itself. Will Samuel L. Jackson return for the sequel? Will Hayden Christensen’s wooden acting improve, or will he be doomed to B-movie no-mans-land like other Star Wars actors? Will this movie bring in enough in box office takings for the studio to green light a sequel?

And will punters be satisfied knowing that the story could have answered many of the questions in the first movie, and left the second for further plot and character development, but didn’t?

If I was a teacher writing a report card to send home to Jumper’s parents, I’d have to say that Jumper is a promising student that refuses to make the effort to live up to it’s potential.

Even with that, I’d give Jumper about 7/10.