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Last Updated: Mar 14th, 2008 - 10:18:53 |
We may have our perennial good guy in Denzel Washington but we also have Samuel L. Jackson, who, perhaps not as often, has played either a fabulous bad guy or a character who is shady or otherwise edgy.
It is this sort of dubious persona that Jackson takes on in the new drama “Jumper,” which imagines a world where a teen-ager discovers that he has the supernatural ability to instantly “jump” to various places around the globe. When a Michigan high school student, David Rice (Hayden Christensen), discovers that he has this power, he leaves his mean father and decides to hone these powers to his advantage. (The name David Rice sounds a lot like Dr. David Bruce Banner of “The Hulk” fame and Christensen, who played Anakin Skywalker in “Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith,” brings the right odd-boy element with his expressive eyes that appear boyish in one moment and menacing in the next.) It doesn’t take David long to figure out that there can be a financial advantage to being able to jump in and out of many places and spaces—such as bank vaults.
Jackson, as a Black blonde named Roland, rolls in as a hater. After David sets himself up in a fly New York City loft, he gets a visit from Roland, who is set on killing him. It seems that just as there are jumpers like David, there is a roving band of assassins called “paladins,” who are set on wiping them out. This aspect of the film, the paladins as super-hating joy killers, isn’t exactly explained, so it seems sort of hokey and extreme. Using various guises as a police officer or as an official from the N.S.A. or I.R.S., Roland just rolls in with a vengeance and tries to slice up dude with a big knife. All he can offer in explanation of his actions is that “only God” should have the powers that jumpers possess. Even though Roland repeats this several times in the movie, it still sounds hokey.
“Jumper” offers several segments of awesome (perhaps computer-generated) scenery—David likes to spend a particular amount of time sunning himself atop the head of the Sphinx in Egypt—but all such scenes and action are muted, for me, by the fact that David isn’t really about anything. Perhaps I read too much into the trailers but I thought “Jumper” had the potential to be about someone with super powers using them for some super good in this troubled world of ours. Even in our basic super hero movies such as “Superman” and “Spiderman,” it is this calling of the super hero, and his or her struggle with evil, that makes the thrills more thrilling and makes the outcome of the action worth following with baited breath.
The most that “Jumper” can offer us is a half-hearted romantic commitment that David has to his high school sweetheart, Millie (Rachel Bilson). Just as Anakin Skywalker was self-absorbed and paranoid, Christensen winds up playing another dude who seems self-absorbed and most interested in using his powers for assorted adventures, including picking up women in bars. As he becomes prey, we do root for him but it isn’t rooting with passion. If “Jumper” is intended as the first in a possible series, it will have to offer more heart to go with its flash and poof.
This review also appeared on Tom Joyner's BlackAmericaWeb.com,/i>
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