I went to the cinema on the weekend for the first time in what felt like an age. I was vaguely disappointed that there wasn’t a more interesting selection of flicks on offer but saw that Jumper was on. Pushing my reservations about Hayden Christensen to one side I went in.

Jumper follows David Rice from his teens when he discovers he is able to teleport through to his adult discovery that his ability is neither unique or a secret. Bullied and not very well looked after by his single-parent father Rice jumps at the opportunity to break out of the grim monotony of his life.

Travelling to the city he does what any fifteen year old boy would allegedly do and steals a whole ton of money. I may be getting senile but that’s not what I would have done when I was fifteen. *Coughs* Anyway, moving on.

The film then jumps to an adult Rice (Hayden Christensen), who has been narrating throughout, and his fun but essentially unfulfilling life jumping wherever fit women drink alone. His one regret is his teenage crush Millie, left behind in his home town and his one true love. [You may be able to guess where this review is going.]

When Rice is attacked by a blond haired Samuel L. Jackson – a hunter of jumpers – he realises his life has attracted attention. And so for some reason Rice runs back to Millie, offers to take her to Rome followed by Jackson along with an amusingly militant Jamie Bell.

The film sports great locations, interesting visual effects, a couple of great character actors (Jackson and Bell) and an entertaining if overwrought SF premise. But it also sucks like a Hoover.

Seriously.

I’ve not read Steven Gould’s novel but I doubt it bears much resemblance to the most formulaic and shameless attempt to generate a film franchise I’ve seen in quite some time. Why? Because it would never have got past an editor in that state. It’s just too easy to break the story down to its constituent parts – plucky but vain hero, the honest hardworking love interest, the psychopathic villain, the parental twist. Blah.

And then there’s Hayden.

Dude can’t act. Sorry. He simply doesn’t have it in him. I was prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt after Star Wars, rationalising that the scripts were pretty dire and even Ewan McGregor was struggling to make it work. But he can’t. He’s like a binary circuit set to either calm or shouting. Neither convincing. And nothing can correct that, not Jackson with his fabulously fanatical turn as the villain, nor Jamie Bell’s crazed crusador.

In short: not worth the celluloid.

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