After Hayden Christensen’s less than impressive performance in the recent Star Wars movies, it was hard to imagine that the boy had any acting talent. Despite the bad reputation Christensen received playing Anakin Skywalker, director Doug Liman offered him the lead in the Superhero thriller, Jumper.
A Speedy Background Story
After a boring expository narrative that sounds more like Christensen reading directly from the novel the film is based on, the audience gets a brief back story as to how this character is now “on top of the world.” Jumper wastes no time getting to the point. It’s almost scary how the younger version of Christensen’s character, David Rice, looks, acts, and even sounds like how one would imagine a young Christensen.
What’s in a Voice?
The monotone narrative voice, which is used only in the opening back story, horridly resembles his unnatural serious tone of his Jedi persona. Thankfully though, as soon as the flashback is done, Christensen proves that he can act. He plays a pretty lousy Jedi knight, but when it comes to being a bashful, cocky teenager, he’s not half bad.
From Novel to Big Screen
Based on Steven Gould’s novel, Jumper, the film under the same name is about a kid who finds out he has teleportation powers after falling through the ice in a frozen river. With these powers, he soon robs a bank and travels the world by using jump points. These jump points are achieved by just seeing a photograph or some physical landing point and then it is possible to jump to that spot at any time from then on. The concept is pretty wild and the storyline gets in-depth.
Paladins vs. Jumpers
Later, David Rice finds out that he is not the only Jumper out there. Jumpers have apparently been around for thousands of years and they secretly fight a war against the Paladins, people who hunt Jumpers. The Paladins are led by a man named Roland (Christensen's co-star in Star Wars, Samuel L. Jackson). By trying to rekindle his relationship with an old crush, Millie Harris (Rachel Bilson from The Last Kiss) Rice accidentally jeopardizes the life of the only person he’s ever cared for.
Far-Fetched Storyline
The movie starts to become a little unbelievable when the history of Jumpers stems back to medieval times and the witch trials. It’s an interesting alternate cover up story, but almost seems unnecessary. Also the casting of a tall thin man to play David Rice is a bit questionable. There are scenes portraying his laziness including sitting on the couch with the remote just out of reach. Rice teleports a couple inches toward it instead of moving. He also rarely walks, why bother when you don’t have to? But one would imagine a person like this would not be in tip top shape.
Jumper Delivers Edge-Of-Your-Seat Action
Jumper has some vivid, wild action sequences that are easily appealing to the eye. In a rush of wind or a splash of sand, trucks and buses are pulled off of roads and used as weapons in fight sequences that are staged in all facets of the world. One second you’re in Egypt, and the next in Fiji. If you blink, you could be lost. Jumper contributes such a broad scope of entertainment from action to comedy that it was an obvious choice for Christensen to redeem himself as an actor.
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