Daggger
Shared on Sun, 03/02/2008 - 10:55Jumper
Like other movies from director Doug Liman (Mr. and Mrs. Smith and The Bourne Identity) Jumper is flashy. However, it is certainly not as refined as his previous works. Certain lapses in storyline were clearly and blatantly replaced for "cool special effects", (I will not mention them because the special effects are nice but it definitely removed from the storyline). Additionally, a nifty sequence introducing the "jumping concept" involves Hayden Christensen's character (David Rice) jumping around his room performing everyday tasks, drinking orange juice, reading the mail, getting dressed, even so far as jumping across the couch to grab the remote. The sequence makes David Rice just comes across as severely lazy.
This sequence made me think three things: 1) What would I do with my life if I didn't have to walk anywhere? 2) How does David Rice stay so fit if he doesn't have to walk anywhere or do anything? And 3) Why is this scene in the movie, this is an action movie, I want to be swept away with special effects, I don't want to see Hayden posing in front of a camera showing how awesome his life is now that he can steal money in order to survive. Did Doug Liman see any action movies at all, action scene after action scene, hell he made The Bourne Identity. It’s amazing to think that Doug could take a character out of a book and put it on screen perfectly like Bourne Identity and than make a stupid scene like this one in Jumper, your main character being a lazy bum is not really a desirable feature of a movie.
That being said, once we get past the "boring part" the movie turns into a pretty decent little action flick. Fight scenes turn into a 3-Dimensional exploration of the entire world, which is an interesting take on fight scenes. While believable you realize that “gravity” is simply a suggestion to the Jumpers. While not as refined as say a Matrix fight scene, you can draw some direct comparisons to the Matrix.
One scene Samuel L. Jackson gets thrown through a wall by a Jumper who built up momentum by jumping several times and it definitely had a Matrix feel to it. But by no means should this movie be compared to that. Jumper is a movie unto itself. And is lacking a depth that almost all other quality action movies have.
There are common themes in movies, confusion, despair, love, anger, friendship, teamwork . . . I think this movie glances over everyone of them and does not do it at all well. But the part of this movie that I am going to talk about here is the love story. But I will talk about it only in an effort to eliminate some crap that I read in a magazine.
Let me say that Rachel Bilson has some good acting skills. She was really good in The Last Kiss, and her agent said, he was viewing [Jumper] as her breakout film. And I hope that isn’t true because while she acted alright and was perhaps the only one who did actual acting in this movie, this was by no means a movie to label as her acting “breakout”. Her character, Millie Harris, has a clumsy look about her in the bar and you expect her to play the clumsy bartender role, which is clichéd by now in movies, but it doesn’t happen. Taking a trip to Rome and you expect Hayden and Rachel’s characters to immediately go out on the town, that’s what I would do if it were my first trip outside the country as is implied, but the trip out on the town doesn’t happen. So while I don’t think Rachel acted poorly in this movie I believe severely that her character lacked the definition that was required. Is Millie the “strong female who decides to save her boyfriend despite not knowing the whole story”, is she “the desperate small-town girl who desires to see the world and immediately sees too much of it and wants to go home”, is she the “trustworthy, ‘tell me the whole’ story and I’ll help you save the day heroine”, or on and on and on. We’ve seen a bunch of well defined characters in film and Millie Harris comes off as extremely schizophrenic in looks and actions.
Finally the rating should be in here somewhere but I just can’t find it. The action is fun, the acting hurt me emotionally, storyline is lacking definition along with the characters. So while I believe this movie is going to make a ton of money at the box office, I give it somewhere between 1 and 2 stars, probably closer to 1.
If you want to read a good review versus my "spit it onto a page" and hopefully my scattershot makes sense, Roger Ebert has a review of this movie that is comparable to my piece of crap writing above.
Roger Ebert's Jumper Review
Like other movies from director Doug Liman (Mr. and Mrs. Smith and The Bourne Identity) Jumper is flashy. However, it is certainly not as refined as his previous works. Certain lapses in storyline were clearly and blatantly replaced for "cool special effects", (I will not mention them because the special effects are nice but it definitely removed from the storyline). Additionally, a nifty sequence introducing the "jumping concept" involves Hayden Christensen's character (David Rice) jumping around his room performing everyday tasks, drinking orange juice, reading the mail, getting dressed, even so far as jumping across the couch to grab the remote. The sequence makes David Rice just comes across as severely lazy.
This sequence made me think three things: 1) What would I do with my life if I didn't have to walk anywhere? 2) How does David Rice stay so fit if he doesn't have to walk anywhere or do anything? And 3) Why is this scene in the movie, this is an action movie, I want to be swept away with special effects, I don't want to see Hayden posing in front of a camera showing how awesome his life is now that he can steal money in order to survive. Did Doug Liman see any action movies at all, action scene after action scene, hell he made The Bourne Identity. It’s amazing to think that Doug could take a character out of a book and put it on screen perfectly like Bourne Identity and than make a stupid scene like this one in Jumper, your main character being a lazy bum is not really a desirable feature of a movie.
That being said, once we get past the "boring part" the movie turns into a pretty decent little action flick. Fight scenes turn into a 3-Dimensional exploration of the entire world, which is an interesting take on fight scenes. While believable you realize that “gravity” is simply a suggestion to the Jumpers. While not as refined as say a Matrix fight scene, you can draw some direct comparisons to the Matrix.
One scene Samuel L. Jackson gets thrown through a wall by a Jumper who built up momentum by jumping several times and it definitely had a Matrix feel to it. But by no means should this movie be compared to that. Jumper is a movie unto itself. And is lacking a depth that almost all other quality action movies have.
There are common themes in movies, confusion, despair, love, anger, friendship, teamwork . . . I think this movie glances over everyone of them and does not do it at all well. But the part of this movie that I am going to talk about here is the love story. But I will talk about it only in an effort to eliminate some crap that I read in a magazine.
Let me say that Rachel Bilson has some good acting skills. She was really good in The Last Kiss, and her agent said, he was viewing [Jumper] as her breakout film. And I hope that isn’t true because while she acted alright and was perhaps the only one who did actual acting in this movie, this was by no means a movie to label as her acting “breakout”. Her character, Millie Harris, has a clumsy look about her in the bar and you expect her to play the clumsy bartender role, which is clichéd by now in movies, but it doesn’t happen. Taking a trip to Rome and you expect Hayden and Rachel’s characters to immediately go out on the town, that’s what I would do if it were my first trip outside the country as is implied, but the trip out on the town doesn’t happen. So while I don’t think Rachel acted poorly in this movie I believe severely that her character lacked the definition that was required. Is Millie the “strong female who decides to save her boyfriend despite not knowing the whole story”, is she “the desperate small-town girl who desires to see the world and immediately sees too much of it and wants to go home”, is she the “trustworthy, ‘tell me the whole’ story and I’ll help you save the day heroine”, or on and on and on. We’ve seen a bunch of well defined characters in film and Millie Harris comes off as extremely schizophrenic in looks and actions.
Finally the rating should be in here somewhere but I just can’t find it. The action is fun, the acting hurt me emotionally, storyline is lacking definition along with the characters. So while I believe this movie is going to make a ton of money at the box office, I give it somewhere between 1 and 2 stars, probably closer to 1.
If you want to read a good review versus my "spit it onto a page" and hopefully my scattershot makes sense, Roger Ebert has a review of this movie that is comparable to my piece of crap writing above.
Roger Ebert's Jumper Review
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Comments
Submitted by Bob on Sun, 03/02/2008 - 18:00
Submitted by bludjun on Sun, 03/02/2008 - 23:05