JUMPER

JUMPER, a science fiction movie with an interesting concept and plenty of action, ultimately misses some good opportunities. The biggest opportunity it misses comes when the movie reveals that the villains are another group of religious fanatics out to kill the good guys, who aren’t really all that good to begin with anyway

Loosely based on a book by Steven Gould, the story opens in high school, where young David Rice and his sweetheart, Millie, are being bullied by another boy. The bully throws a gift from David onto the ice in a pond. David tries to retrieve the gift, but falls under the ice. Panicked, David suddenly is able to teleport himself, and some water and ice, into the nearby public library.

Estranged from his father, whose wife left the family when David was five, David decides to take his newfound teleporting ability to leave home forever. He then decides to rob a bank in New York City. David succeeds, but a suspicious government agent named Roland (played by Samuel L. Jackson with dyed white hair) seems to know how David stole the money.

Several years later, David is a young adult, now played by Hayden Christensen. Flush with other stolen bank money, David is living the good life. Using his teleport abilities, he travels the world. Unhappily for him, however, a fiery “Jumper” named Griffin (played by Jamie Bell) has noticed David. Even worse, Roland turns out to be the leader of a group of evil implied Christians, called Paladins, who believe that teleporting Jumpers like David and Griffin shouldn’t have such God-like powers. Roland is on a mission to kill every Jumper he can capture, using new technology.

JUMPER is a fascinating science fiction story in the beginning, until it resorts to the old cliché of the evil Christians trying to hunt and kill people they view as an abomination to God. Although Roland’s Christianity is only implied, his belief and commitment to the traditional view of an omnipresent God are overt. Another problem with the movie is that its titular hero, David, gets away with breaking rules and robbing banks. This seriously dilutes the heroic qualities that the writers and filmmakers are trying to attach to this movie. The average moviegoer wants, and needs, heroes with redeeming qualities, not “heroes” who use their abilities to lie, cheat and steal.